Notes Replayed
by TuppenceBee
Summary: A retelling of ALW's Phantom of the Opera from the point of Christine and Raoul's romantic moment on the rooftop. Only instead of choosing Raoul at this pivotal moment...she chooses Erik. This fanfic explores how the story might have gone if she'd made that decision. Please R R; it will get ya karma points ;- .
1. Look With Your Heart

A/N:

Okay, so this is basically a retelling of the musical, taken from the key moment of the 'All I Ask of You' scene on the rooftop, where Christine realises her heart belongs to Erik, and not her childhood friend. This is taken more heavily from the movie version than the stage production, mainly because scene and dialogue wise, the film is (obviously) easier to refer to. But feel free to imagine any other casts while reading this, or make up a dream cast of your own, it's not like I'm going to know...or hunt you down...or anything.

So anyway, enjoy and please review as hearing back from you guys is always really rewarding and also helpful in the direction and writing of the story :-)

So yes, the usual stuff about not owning anything, this is just for entertainment purposes, blah, blah, blah.

Also the song in this chapter, as many, if not all of you will know, is Christine's song Look with your Heart from Love Never Dies. Anna O'Byrne (Australian Production) singing this is just so beautiful sounding.

Also I do write Viscount rather than the more modern term Vicomte as that is what the term is in the book and what it would have been at the time.

Anyway, on wiv ze show. Enjoy!

* * *

Look with your Heart

"_And soon you'll be beside me!"_

"_You'll guide me and you'll guard me..."_ She held his hand tightly, desperate for him to whisk her away from all that frightened her, all that made her fear her own shadow, any shadow.

"Monsieur! Viscount!" Someone called from below, "I'm afraid we desire your immediate attention." Raoul did not immediately reply, reluctant to leave Christine, and the voice below seemed to feel more persuasion was needed, "As our patron, Monsieur! In light of our recent..." The voice cleared his throat, "Erm, accident?"

Raoul turned to Christine, apology and regret in his eyes that he would soon have to leave moments after a promise to remain by her side.

"Go," Christine smiled, "Madame Giry will need me in my dressing room."

Raoul nodded and swiftly set to where he was needed and Christine went to head in the direction of her dressing room, but something stopped her in her tracks. She could hear something. It sounded like...crying. No; sobbing. She turned and walked back up the very few steps she and Raoul had just ventured back down and found herself back on the cold snowy rooftop. She gazed around and her eyes came to land on the most pitying sight that she felt the tears pour down her cheeks at the moment of witnessing it.

It was the afeared Phantom of the Opera on the ground, his knees in the snow, huddled over the rose she had dropped. The rose he had given her, cradling it.

"_He was bound to love you...when he heard you sing,_" His voice was breaking with emotion, "_Christine..._"

She took a step forward almost instinctively, but the brush of her skirts against the cold, wet snow prevented it from being silent and undetected. She saw his shoulders tense, his gentle grasp on the rose becoming tighter. He did not look at her and she could see nothing but the smooth, white mask which hid his deformity. Looking upon this poor creature she could not connect him with the murder of Joseph Buquet down below on the stage of the Opera Populaire. It didn't make sense, neither her heart nor her mind could accept, despite all the facts to the contrary. He was just such a...sad sight.

"_And in his eyes all the sadness of the world..._." She repeated her words from earlier and he slowly, ever so slowly, turned to look at her, "_those pleading eyes...that both threaten and adore..._"

She walked towards him slowly and deliberately until she was stood beside where he was kneeling. She paused a moment before holding her hand out for the rose and she couldn't ignore the mirroring resemblance to when he had silently requested for his mask in the same way. Noiselessly he placed the rose into her palm with an almost shaking hand, before finally rising to his feet. His once cowering shape now broad-shoulders and towering over her and she again felt those sensations he caused in her which she was too frightened to investigate.

"Christine," The hand that had returned the rose now lifted itself to her cheek, to caress it but there was barely the most feather-light of touches before she took a small step back, out of range.

"Why?" She asked him, her eyes searching desperately for an answer. It was only one word and yet he knew immediately that to which she referred.

A thousand answers ran through his mind; Buquet had spied on him, found his trap doors, mocked him, told false tales of him, stuck his nose where it didn't belong, tried to stop him, got in his way...and had leered at Christine and Madame Giry's young daughter repeatedly. All these answers were there, but he found none which would give Christine the justification she clearly sought.

"I know nothing else," He finally answered, "He was a foolish man who did foolish things. Before a final foolish end."

She looked at him, her eyes wide with fear, yet the look of sympathy was not yet gone from her face. Rather than give him hope, this made him turn inward, hate his own actions, curse his own life for making him what he was. A monster out and a monster within.

"_Fear will turn to hate...you'll learn to see, to find there's no man behind the monster. This...repulsive carcass which 'hunts to kill'...who cannot escape his past and never will...never will..."_

All he had known was rejection and hatred and loathing. All he had known was the dangers of if anyone found him, how his life, the small chance at life Madame Giry had given him in his youth, would be destroyed. And he knew no other solution than to remove the problem completely. Violence had always been his survival instinct- he'd had no choice and now it seemed he had no choice to escape it either. He turned away from Christine, unable to bear him looking upon him. Look on him with disgust and fear with the slightest of that despicable emotion pity mixed within in.

"_I remember there was music." _The haunting melody from her time in his watery underground home. _"Music in my dark lonely room. And this voice of an Angel sang to me, saved me from despair." _He turned to look at her slightly, not quite believing the words his ears knew he was hearing, but his mind denied. She stepped towards him and placed her small hand upon his arm softly in a comforting, reassuring gesture,_ "And from that voice there was a man..." _

"_A man..." _He repeated the word quietly, in barely a whisper.

"Your anger frightens me," She told him, "Your violent emotions...they consume you completely and in those moments...it is hard to believe there is a man behind that mask. And yet I cannot deny that it rises from a deeper place, a place so sad, I feel if I knew it entirely I could never escape it. Your music and your voice, your love and your passions are so...beautiful that they couldn't be if the owner did not have true goodness inside him."

"Christine-"

"What frightens me most," She spoke over him, only quietly but the merest breath of her voice was enough to silence him at this moment, "is I do not which part of you is stronger. Which dominates you truly. Something angry and violent...or something beautiful and angelic."

Her part said she bowed her head, finding herself unable to meet his eyes, finding herself afraid, no- worried, of his response.

"Christine..." He took her hands in his with a desperation that made him squeeze a little too tight, "You are what breaths life, joy, music into me! If I had you by my side Christine, I would have nothing but good to give to this world! Everything twisted and dark within me would turn to light...with you." He said these last two words softly, and she felt him staring intently at her waiting for a response and she knew the look that would be there in his eyes. A look that drew her to him as much as the sound of his voice. To look would be to let him into her soul and she knew from that moment, there would be no going back; they would be entwined forever. She took a deep breath, the deepest she had ever taken or ever would, and raised her eyes to look at him.

Below in the Opera Populaire they heard the strands of Il Muto attempting to begin again, anything to calm the distraught audience. Anything to prevent bad reviews, comments, and gossip spreading about the place.

At this, the Phantom's emotional mask resumed it's place and he stood up straighter, still holding Christine's hands.

"You had better return." He told her, "Before they come looking for you. And before this cold night air reaches you..." He placed one hand on her cheek and she did not step away as before but continued to look at him, "My Christine..."

* * *

Afterwards, when all the audience had left, tongues wagging despite the two directors attempts to counter this, and all the dancers and singers were changing out of costume, and Carlotta had fled the building with Piangi at mortified horror at her own croaking performance, Christine retired to her dressing room but was stopped by Raoul.

"Christine" He called out to her, rushing his step a little to catch-up, "I am sorry had to leave you early. Those darn directors- they felt my presence, that a member of aristocracy announcing the all's well would have a better effect than anyone else. Particularly the a current patron" His voice was full of apology at having been dragged into such a farce. He took Christine's hand in his, "You _were_ okay weren't you?"

She gently pulled her hand away from his, enough to make the move noticeable but not enough to offend.

"Yes. I was fine." She looked at him and knew she would have to tell him soon that their relationship, established so firmly only a short while ago, was now completely upturned. But not now, the story was too long and too complicated. And how on earth would she confess it all when the time came? That she had pledged her heart to the Phantom of the Opera, the one person everyone was searching for and afraid to find. "Raoul...I have to...I have to dress. I will speak to you soon" She turned and walked to her room, leaving the Viscount stood in the dark-lit corridor, bewildered by his pseudo-fiancée's behaviour. Frowning, and trying to work it out, he eventually left in the opposite direction, oblivious to the fact a young member of the Corps de Ballet, Meg Giry, had watched the entire exchange.

Christine was about to don her dressing gown when she found herself interrupted again as someone knocked on her door before almost immediately walking in and she turned to see her close friend and almost-sister Meg.

"Meg," She smiled warmly at her friend, but the smile was not returned.

"Christine, why did you just send Raoul away?" The question was not accusatory but said with genuine inquisitiveness as though her friend's action were beyond what she could understand.

"Pardon?"

"I just saw you...I wasn't spying...I just happened to see. You took your hand away and left him stood there...I thought you loved him Christine," When Christine did not reply but instead remained silent Meg felt she had to continue further, "And that didn't seem like the actions of a woman in love"

"You are wrong Meg," Her friend told her warmly, feeling she could confide in her long-time friend, "For I am a woman in love" She paused as she prepared to bare all, "But Raoul is not the one to which my heart belongs. I do love him but as I love you, not as one loves a fiancée."

Curiosity overtook Meg's concern and she smiled with eagerness to know more.

"Oh Christine, tell me. Who are you in love with?"

"I'm afraid the answer will be too much for you to hear..." She bit her lip in worry.

"What do you mean?"

"_The Phantom of the Opera..._"

"_The Phantom of the Opera?_"

"_Is there inside my heart..._."

"The Phantom of the Opera...but he's a murderer Christine," Meg reminded her, taking a step back in horror at her friend's admittance, "Christine, he is a menace and he has killed. The directors, they say it was an accident and nothing more but I know it was him. I saw. And there's nothing to say he won't do it again"

"No he wouldn't" Christine immediately protested, though she knew she couldn't be sure of such a thing. But his promises had been so heartfelt, so genuine.

"Christine, he is capable of _anything._ What possible good could you see in him, that would make you...make you love him?"

Christine turned to her dressing table, fingering the items laid out there, as she thought of the answer to give. As she looked at her own reflection she remembered the first time she had come face to face with her Angel of Music who had not been an angel at all, but a man of flesh and blood.

"_Love's a curious thing, it often comes disguised. Look at love the wrong way it goes unrecognised. So look with your heart and not with your eyes. The heart understands, the heart never lies."_ She turned around to look at Meg whose look of horror had faded away but had been replaced by one of utter bewilderment. _"Believe what it feels and trust what it shows. Look with your heart; the heart always knows"_

"But Christine, people all say he's a monster. That to look upon his face, his true face is...that it's horrific. How can you-"

Christine merely smiled at her.

"_Love is not always beautiful, not at the start. So open your arms and close your eyes tight. Look with your heart and when it finds love...your heart will be right" _She looked at her friend with a sudden wisdom in her eyes that was beyond her years, "I feel when I look into those eyes and see all the pain and sadness there and so much hope for more, for anything but the awful things he has suffered and seen and...I feel as though I could forgive him all the sins in the world."

"Christine I don't know what to say. Or what you wish me to say"

"Say nothing," Christine told her, hugging her briefly, "Just promise me you won't turn away from me and that you will not breath a word of what I have told you to anyone. Please"

It took a moment but eventually Meg gave the only answer she could.

"I promise"


	2. Masquerade

A/N: I know this chapter may possibly make it seem as though the story isn't deviating very far but I am working to getting towards a particular point. And I still want it to be recognisable to the original, y'know?

Anyway enjoy and please review yah?

* * *

Masquerade

"_Masquerade! Paper faces on parade! Masquerade! Hide your face so the world will never find you! Masquerade! Every face a different shade! Masquerade! Look around...there's another mask behind you!"_

It was New Year's Eve and Le Bal Masque was in full swing with staff, casts, invited dignitaries, patrons, paying guests dressed in their most fantastical costumes with glorious bejewelled masks hiding all their identities. A handsome looking man in a black and gold suit with matching black domino entered the festivities with the intent to find someone he had not seen in a very long time and had been unable to speak to in any extended conversation since she had long refused to receive him. He wanted answers. They had been set to be free, to escape together, to live happily ever after and she had changed her mind. Changed it so suddenly- telling him her place was with the Opera Populaire and her fellow cast members. They were her family and she did not wish to leave them. She would tell him no more and after that meeting he had been unable to speak to her for more than a brief greeting. But tonight, tonight they would both be in attendance and in the spirit of the party she would not be able to deny him a dance and so he would have it out with her.

"Why it's the Viscount de Chagny!" Monsieur Firmin exclaimed happily upon seeing him, "I should disregard your domino; it hides your identity abysmally!"

"Then monsieur it is just as well I do not wish to disguise who I am from anyone who would wish to see me" Raoul replied but Firmin waved the response aside.

"Nonsense! That's the whole fun of a masquerade. Hidden behind this" He waved his own elaborate disguise, "I know a freedom known on no other night!" He laughed at his own private joke before turning his attention to other partygoers, leaving Raoul to scan the room for Christine. It seemed hopeless to find her in such a crowd. And then he saw her. Looking resplendent in a pale rose pink gown an sparkling gold mask, she seemed to shine beyond everyone else. She was currently dancing with a tall masked stranger decked in red and wearing a mask that gave him the illusion of being a devil hidden amongst the dance floor.

"_But who can name the face? Masquerade!"_

Raoul walked forwards towards Christine but did not get very far before he bumped, literally, into Madame Giry, wearing her traditional black with an added mask which was a more feminine version of his own.

"Madame, do you know the man Christine is dancing with?"

"Why it is believed to be her beau Monsieur," She explained.

"Her beau?"

"Oui. She has spoken of him partially these past months, but this is the first time he has attended an event...shall we say openly with her? But he is yet to lift his mask Monsieur and prefers to remain hidden"

"So you don't know who he is really? Behind his masquerade?"

"No one here knows, Monsieur. If you'll excuse me," She left his company to find Meg. Raoul looked over at the dancing couple again.

"No..." He said to himself. What he was thinking could not possibly be. It was too surreal...Christine wouldn't. No, no she wouldn't. If this was a trick then certainly this was a trick played on her as well. The man in the mask was not her beau. Raoul, set out determined, as he walked through the waltz that was picking up in pace and enthusiasm, becoming more frenzied as they danced around him.

"_Masquerade!" _

Christine and her masked partner, danced and danced, oblivious to anyone who may be watching them. Safe behind their masks they felt a freedom which poured into their every dance step.

"_Stop and stare at the sea of smiles around you! Masquerade!"_

They were becoming dizzy with the constant twirling and felt themselves slowing down.

"_Grinning yellows! Spinning reds!"_

They came to a final halt, slightly out of breath and looking at one another through their decorative guises.

"_Masquerade- take your fill!"_

Feeling safe and hidden they lent into one another, lips mere inches apart, unaware of the man in the black domino coming up behind them, his arm outstretched towards the man in red.

"_Let the spectacle astound you-"_

Suddenly screams broke into the sounds of music and joviality as, without warned, the man in red was demasked by the man of black and gold to reveal...not a man at all but a hideous monster with a duality of face in which something perfectly formed and handsome was beside deformed, red, marred and twisted flesh, unformed lips and a head covered with nothing but the finest tufts of colourless hair.

Only four people in the entire room did not scream in horror; Christine who only looked at him with sadness for the grand demasking he did not deserve, Meg who through conversations with Christine was not surprised by the reveal, Madame Giry who had known along the man in the mask even if no one wished to tell her and the final person was Raoul who had been the one to rip off the mask. But while he had suspected who he would reveal, he had not been prepared for what he had revealed.

"Christine, as you see, this is not the man you believed you were dancing with. In his stead you find your angel, your Phantom of the Opera..._a man and nothing more..."_

"Raoul," Christine began, about to tell him all, in front of everyone there, but a gloved hand on her wrist stopped her. He turned to face his rival, briefly looking down at the mask and wig in the Viscount's hand and forcing himself to mask the pain and vulnerability he felt at having his features bared.

"Well done my good monsieur, you revealed the man behind the mask," He turned to face the entire crowd, "I, your Opera Ghost, have walked among you, talked among you...danced among you. And now you have seen my face, is it not more hideous, more horrible, more terrible than any of you imagined me? And now...my good messieurs," A smirk appeared on his face as he said this, a look of disdain which told he thought of them as anything but. "It is time for my message to you all. You have forgotten your places, that this is _my_ Opera House," He turned to Firmin and Andre, "Not the property of managers who would do better in offices than the arts." The two men failed to hide their trembling. "And they are fools if they think I do not know that as of yesterday evening box five was rented out...Box Five is to be reserved for me," He hissed, "And me alone!" He now spoke to them all, "I shall contact you directly via the usual manner to discuss the running of my Opera House. I have let you run wild long enough and it is time for the Master to take command...and to weed out those..." He sneered over at the diva Carlotta who was fanning herself and feigning disinterest. And feigning it badly, "...weaknesses". He backed up two steps of the staircase and then suddenly there was noise and smoke and he was gone. Disappeared through a trap door; Raoul glimpsed the trick and went to dive in after him but Christine grabbed his arm and held him back.

"Raoul, no!" The trap sealed as though it had never been.

* * *

Running away from the crowds, Christine had eventually escaped to her usual oasis; her dressing room. She paced and called out, tried to work the mysterious mirror but found it would not yield it's secrets to her. There was a knock at her door and she froze. It wasn't...he didn't...he wouldn't? Tentatively she went to the door and turned the handle to see who was there.

"Madame Giry," She greeted, instantly stepping aside to let her through even though she had not asked. She silently assented, before immediately asking the question she had come to ask, not bothering to supply polite conversation first.

"You knew he was the man in the mask, non?"

"I- I...he..." Christine stuttered, unsure what to say and Mme Giry sighed in frustration.

"You may think I am old, but I have eyes in my head. Je sais, Christine. Even if young silly girls do not believe I am to be trusted or am beyond such things, Erik trusts me and knows me enough to share, if not all, then some"

"Erik?" Christine repeated, "You know him...he didn't, he didn't tell me," She admitted, giving up all pretence at ignorance.

"Non. He would not. Our relationship has been a private thing for a very long time- a privation that is not forgotten easily." Mme Giry's harsh expression as she now looked at Christine, "I have come to ask, do you know what you are doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you serious...about this intended relationship with him? Do you realise all it would entail? His handicapp would prevent you ever truly having a normal life and if you are merely," She searched the word, "Sampling what intrigues then I advise you stop this immediately. If you mess with him, mess with his heart, you have no idea what he might do. How his mind and temper can turn...so suddenly," She became sad as she thought on things, "It is the life he has suffered. C'etait terrible...trop terrible...to not have his mind effected by all he has suffered"

Christine looked at the woman in amazement. This ballet mistress who had always seemed so strict, reserved, even when at her most caring; an emotional blank canvas was now showing more feelings, no matter how reserved, than Christine had even seen in her.

"You really...care about him don't you?"

Madame Giry seemed almost about to tell her more, to tell her why she cared and then the poker face returned as she seemed to have second thoughts about sharing so much. Instead she asked, "My question is; do you?"

She paused only the briefest of moments before openly admitting, "Yes. I do. I don't understand it, and sometimes it frightens me- to feel this way for someone who can be so dangerous...but there's so much in him that is good and creative and beautiful. His music, his designs, he's...he's..."

"A genius," Madame Giry finished and Christine nodded in agreement.

"It's the way he talks also; he's so passionate, enthusiastic. As though he can only work in extremes but it's- I mean when he talks of us he talks in forevers and eternities and bonds beyond the physical. You have no idea how...intoxicating it is to have some speak, feel that way about you" Christine now switched from entrancement to worry, "And now I don't know why he has gone. I've called out to him and yet he isn't...he doesn't come. And I don't know how to work this mirror" She gestured at it helplessly.

Mme Giry walked over and with her hand, pressed behind the frame of the mirror where a counterweight suddenly began to work and the mirror slid aside revealing a dark, damp, stone corridor. She didn't say anything but merely waved her hand as if to say 'Voila'.

Christine thanked her before stepping over the threshold of the mirror, apprehensively at first and then after the first few steps they became more determined. She heard the mirror slide shut behind her blocking her from Madame Giry's view and vice versa.


	3. In a Very Unusual Way

A/N: Thank you to all reading this, to all people who've messaged me, favourited this story or added it to their alerts- I would love to hear from you guys. And thank you to the one reviewer, FYInichole, for your lovely review and I hope you like this chapter and the many more to come :_)

In a Very Unusual Way is a song from the Italian musical, Nine, translated into English. Obviously, haha. I just felt it fit Erik and Christine very well.

Anyway enjoy, and please review and let me know what you think. Thanks.

Tuppence x

* * *

She found her way through the tunnels fairly easily and it wasn't long before she reached the lake, and here she was forced to stop for there was no boat, no Erik, no bridge. No way to cross it's watery depths at all and she was only able to stand there helplessly. She was sure he must be here somewhere, but some part, a little voice in her head said that he wasn't. That he had left, fled for good after having been forced to show his deformity to a crowd as large as one that had been at the Masquerade. Suddenly this thought became to overtake all others and she began to shake as she silently cried, not knowing what to do. It was as she knelt at the edge of the lake, that the lights became dimmer, or rather a shadow towered over and blocked what little light there was in the dank place.

She turned her head to see the Phantom of the Opera standing silently over her; another mask and hair piece were in place of the ones ripped from him earlier on. She felt too drained to stand up and hold him in relief as she wished to, instead she just looked at him, blinking the tears away that threatened in the corners of her eyes.

"I thought you had left."

"Not yet," He answered and she frowned at him.

"'Not yet'? What do you mean not yet? You _are_ leaving then?"

His eyes averted her gaze, "I think it's for the best. That...scene," He spat out the word, "upstairs was an eye-opener. If God has never granted me anything before, then in that moment he did. He granted me the ability to do the right thing."

"The right thing?"

"I have selfishly wished for you, and now I dare to believe I have you and a selfishly take claim on that. This is not a life for you; a life of darkness and shadows with a freak who holds a past as hideous as his face."

"So you are leaving...and leaving me?" Christine furiously wiped at the wet tears on her face, drying her cheeks instantly. "All those years ago when you said you would always be my side, that I would always have someone...that was a lie?"  
"You will come to realise in time that this is right. That your...feelings were a temporary problem which will soon be overcome by a life in the light with the love that you deserve"

Christine could not believe what she was hearing. She had taken a gigantic emotional, and physical, risk that night on the rooftop. And many would have said she'd made a stupid choice when she had sided with Erik even so shortly after Buquet's garrotted body dropping to the stage.

"A temporary problem?" She repeated, now standing up. "I have said I will risk everything for you. I was not the one who refused to tell the party-goers the truth; you were."

"But don't you see," He said, grabbing her shoulders, "If you had...in that one brief moment your reputation, your life, your everything would have been ruined. Nothing is worth that, Christine, nothing! And certainly not I"

Christine was silent for a moment, her chin on her chest and then, without pulling out of his grasp she looked up at him, searching his face.

"_In a very unusual way, one time I needed you. In a very unusual way, you were my friend. It could have lasted a day, maybe it will last forever. But somehow it will never end_" She now pulled away from him, turning her back on him as she brought herself to admit openly what he perhaps suspected, even though she had never confessed to it, "_In a very unusual way, I think...I'm in love with you. In a very unusual way I want to cry. Something inside me goes weak. Something inside me surrenders" _She turned to look at him, where he stood, looking unusually thrown, _"And you're the reason why! You're the reason why!" _He went to step back but she stepped towards him, closing the gap and grabbed his arm as he had just grasped hers. "_You don't know what you do to me, you don't have a clue. You can't tell what it's like to be me, looking at you." _She dropped her hand from his arm and looked down as though the sudden passionate emotion had left her as quickly as it had came upon her, "_It scares me so that I can hardly speak"_

"My Christine..." He tentatively placed a hand on her cheek. His hand was shaking as though frightened of her reaction or frightened of his own. "_In a very unusual way I owe what I am to you. Though at times it appears I won't stay...I'll never go. Special to me in my life, since the first day that I met you"_

Christine took his hand off her cheek, but continued to hold it in her own palm as the two voices became one.

"_How can I ever forget you...Once you have touched my soul? In a very unusual way you make me whole..."_

And she kissed him. Fully, ignoring the way the corner of his mask grazed her cheek and that the damp ceilings above were dripping down on them. She had never truly kissed him before, despite her feelings and their history, a lifetime of lessons in propriety had prevented anything but hand-holding and chaste kisses, but this was anything but. This was a lover's kiss and it was something neither had ever experienced. Her kiss with Raoul was but a pale shadow in comparison. As she kissed him, his arms enveloped her, while her hands started to explore his chest, pressing hard and feeling the definition underneath the clothing and despite what little she knew of such things, she felt her attraction and arousement increase. Dangerously so and so eventually the two parted, though it was reluctantly done and as she looked into his eyes, the sadness she had always seen before, while still present, had faded to reveal a happiness she had never truly seen in him before.

"I don't deserve you" He told her.

"I believe you do" She contradicted, squeezing his hand encouragingly, as though to make him further secure of her sentiments. It felt as though they had stood there for the longest time, but neither had yet moved. Eventually, Erik broke the gaze and looked upwards to the unseen stage level of the Opera Populaire.

"You have to go back," He told her, "After everything that has happened, any extended absence will be quickly noticed and investigated. But first-" He seemed to be weighing a decision in his mind, "I wish to share with you something"

* * *

"_Don Juan Triomphant"_ Christine read the scribbled title aloud as Erik held it before her.

"It is not yet finished, but it is to be my greatest work," He explained, "It is a score that revels in it's superiority and makes a mockery of what everyone calls 'opera music'."

Christine skimmed through the notes, humming bits and pieces in her mind. It was very indepth and powerful.

"It's a very complicated piece." She commented, "And I imagine rather difficult to perform"

"You shall perform it"

"What?"

"This is for _you, _Christine," He insisted, "You shall be Amnita, and you shall shine and you shall enthrall every single soul who hears you. You shall perform it"

"But how...I...where..."

"Here, in this Opera House." He now looked at her seriously, all thoughts of scores and opera temporarily aside, "Do you choose me in all seriousness? Do you truly wish to risk this life with me?"

"Yes."

"Then you understand we cannot stay here if that is to happen. The bowels of an Opera House are no place for you, and my notoriety," His face reddened in shame, but the moment passed quickly, "here would prevent a home in Paris. You would be sacrificing everything you know...am I worth that? Are you willing to take that step?"

"Yes..." There was a questioning tone in her voice now, unsure of the direction this conversation was taking.

"Then you must perform in _Don Juan_, you must"

"I don't understand how that effects-"

"Do you trust me?"

"Pardon?""

"Do you trust me?" He repeated, his soul hoping she would but his mind saying she couldn't.

For her part, it took her a moment to answer but when she did it was a resounding "Yes"

"Then when I present this piece to the managers, you _must_ perform"

* * *

"Madame Giry,"

Mme Giry kept walking down the corridor, ignoring the voice calling her.

"Madame Giry, please,"

She had no choice but to stop.

"Viscount," She bowed her head as he reached her, "How may I help you, Monsieur?"

"The Opera Ghost"

"Oui, Monsieur?"

"You know him, do you not Madame?" He asked, already part-way sure of the answer.

"I don't know what you're talking about Monsieur," She answered, "If you'll excuse me, I have to find my Meg"

"Madame, please," He held her back before she could walk away from him, "I believe Christine may be in danger. You have to help me"

"Christine is in no danger." She went on before he could argue with her, "She is in no more danger from the Phantom of the Opera, than she is of you and that sword you carry in your belt" She looked at the sword with an expression that she clearly found carrying a weapon in an Opera House was incredibly uncouth.

"She may be in no physical danger, presently, I admit, but he has a hold on her that is beyond her control. He tricks her again and again and...I believe she is danger of her life being forever haunted by him"

"You are no longer making love to her, non?" Mme Giry asked bluntly and though thrown by the question, and normally would have found it an inappropriate thing to ask, under the ballet mistress' gaze he found himself answering honestly.

"No. Christine has made it blatantly clear that she thinks of me as no more than the childhood friend who once rescued that scarf," He admitted, "But as that friend I still feel it is in my duty to protect her, to keep her safe. To ensure she has the life she deserves"

Madame Giry sighed, taking pity on the clueless young boy.

"I have nothing to say, Viscount. I suggest you speak to Mlle Daaé. She will not be available tonight but during the day tomorrow, I am sure she will be able to receive our generous patron"


	4. Once Upon Another Time

A/N: This chapter is a little long and is mostly about Erik's back story. Well some of it anyway. I have taken a lot from Susan Kay's Phantom but I've cut hers short to allow it to fit in timeline wise etc with ALW's version of events. I've tried to be detailed yet also brief so those who haven't read Phantom will have the info and those who have won't be bored. I'm so considerate, non? Haha.

I'd just like to say thank you to all those reading, the many of you adding it to favourites and alerts, and you fab people who've given me reviews; I love hearing from you. Thank you PhantomFan01, Alydrial and GracefulWolvesintheNight (I like to think by choosing Erik actively she does get more backboney...for want of a better word, haha).)

Also the song I've adapted here is another from Love Never Dies called, duh, Once Upon Another Time

Anyway, enjoy and let me know what you think.

Tuppence x

* * *

Once Upon Another Time

"Christine, I'm so glad you've agreed to see me," The Viscount de Chagny could not hide the relief in his voice at the access to this simple conversation. It was not particularly private as the two had merely taken seats in the opera house chairs facing the stage while members of the ballet warmed up to the barked orders of Madame Giry.

"It's always a pleasure to meet with a friend," She was exaggerating and omitting certain truths, but she felt it was for the greater good.

"It's more than fond old times I wish to discuss with you Christine," He told her, his tone serious, "I need to speak with you about the Phantom of the Opera"

"What do you mean?"

Raoul held back the frustration that rose within him at this blatant denial.

"You were dancing with him at the New Year's Bal Masque and from what little I am able to gather from the gossip that travels around this place, his identity was not the surprise I had originally thought it to be"

"You have answered your own question Raoul. Gossip is gossip and rarely many facts are gleaned from it," She saw his genuine concern for her and took pity on him, placing a hand on his, "I thank you for your concern Raoul, but you have nothing to worry about"

"That's what worries me the most," He argued, "That you feel safe, content, with this man, this malevolent 'spirit', who haunts this place in the shadows and that you are truly unaware of the danger you are placing yourself in by befriending him. I know you deny it, Christine, and that all but the barest few here even suspect it, but I know it to be true. He has fooled you Christine, he has you under his spell, and you have to break from it. For your sake and for all our sakes"

"You know nothing of what you speak of, Raoul," Christine told him, anger rising ever so slightly in her usual serene countenance, and she stood up to leave but he pulled her back down again, "Raoul! What do you think-"

"You are in danger Christine, even if you don't realise it and as God as my witness nothing will stop me protecting you"

"I appreciate your friendship and concern, Monsieur Viscount," She rose from her seat, "But, please, I ask that you do not bother me in this matter again"

As she went to walk back to the stage, Raoul took hold of her hand stopping her.

"He has killed Christine. Mlle Giry told me about the Buquet incident- she saw it all. And from what little detailed tales surround him, it is not the first life he has taken. Have you asked him about this?"  
"I know all I need to"

"Have you asked him?" Raoul repeated, "Ask him why. Ask him how he is even capable. And see if his answers don't open your eyes"

Decidedly and reluctantly unnerved by Raoul's insistences but trying not to show it, Christine finally turned away and headed back towards the stage.

* * *

When Erik visited her dressing room that evening, it would be with a heavy heart that she would receive him. She didn't wish to hurt him, to make him think her feelings could be so easily changed- they couldn't and no amount of instances from the Viscount could convince she would change the way she felt about the Phantom- but she couldn't deny that Raoul had hit a nerve in that she was desperate to know more about Erik's past. She needed to know it. She had reasoned her way out of her horror at the death of Joseph Buquet because, deep in her soul, she felt there were reasons, explanations, experiences of Erik's that would explain it away, allow them to move past it. But it had been several months now and she had yet to hear a word of his past. She also suspected Madame Giry knew more than she let on, knew more than Christine did at least, and despite her support of Christine it was her innate protection of Erik that seemed to prevent her from sharing.

Therefore there was only one choice left; if she was to know what she needed to, she would have to ask Erik herself. It was not a conversation she looked forward to.

* * *

Monsieur Firmin carefully peeked through his small pile of post on his desk in his office, before relaxing back in his chair and opening them one by one with ease. His co-manager watched him with amusement that just barely masked his own concern.

"You are looking for a black-bordered letter-"

"Note" Firmin corrected immediately.

"Note. You are looking for a black-bordered note," Andre amended.

"Yes, yes, I'll admit I am. And do you know, despite the debacle at the ball-"

"Atrocious"

"Awfully"

"Was quite beyond anything."

"Quite. Anyway," Firmin continued, "Since that particular incident I have yet to receive a single note." He looked at Andre for confirmation which he promptly gave.

"No, no, nor have I..." They both seemed reluctant to get to the point they were both so eager to make.

"And it has been over a month..."

"Almost two in fact," Andre added.

"And not a single note to follow on his claim..." Firmin began to conclude warily, slightly catching his partner's eye.

"Clearly just empty threats!" They both said in sync, both braving at the same time to say what they thought the other wouldn't. There was suddenly a knock at the office door, however, which made them nearly jump out of their chairs and their skins. They quickly composed themselves however before calling for the person to come in. It was Madame Giry.

Firmin rose from his seat and both he and Andre walked the short distance to meet her before she had come very far into the room.

"Madame Giry," Andre greeted her with a slight bow, "what might we do for you?"

"I have brought something for you, Messieurs,"

"Brought something?" Firmin's eyes lit up, jumping to the thoughts of gifts. Gifts such as tickets to aristocratic galas and the like, "For me? I- uh- I mean for us?"

"Oui, monsieur" She reached into the pockets of her skirts and brought it out, "I have a note"

The note was black bordered. Firmin and Andre both sank into nearby chairs, their faces suddenly a rather sickening shade of grey.

* * *

"My past?" It was only two words, but the manner in which he said them, made a trace of the fear she used to feel come back to Christine, and she consciously pushed it down. He had very strong emotions- she knew that- she would just have to cope with it and in time, hopefully, control it.

"Yes," She said in barely a whisper, "Not all...just some..."

"Why?" He asked. He had been pacing the room upon hearing her request, but now he stood perfectly still, looking at the wall, his back to her.

"You won't...you know all of mine don't you? Why can't I know...just some, of yours?"

"So it isn't because you fear me? Because of Buquet? Because of the precious Viscount whispering ideas into your head?"

"Wh-"

He turned to face her now and his face was grimly set.

"_Did you think I wouldn't guess? Did you think I wouldn't know? Do you have something to confess? I want the truth right now if so!"_

She looked at him in silence, her look stoic, and her lips becoming tense and thin. It was an expression he had not seen on her before.

"You asked me, not very long ago, whether I trusted you." She reminded him, "And I answered yes. And yet you refuse to grant me the same courtesy. Yes I spoke to Raoul. Yes he raised some questions for me but that doesn't mean I've changed my mind, or that I don't trust you, or that I fear you. I don't know why you always jump to these conclusions; I have made this decision not on a whim, but with my whole heart." She looked at him now with sadness in her eyes as though she couldn't believe he thought such things of her, "And you think it can be changed by one conversation with a childhood friend?"

His shoulders seemed to slump slightly as all of the intense emotion rushed out of him and he turned away, unable to look at her.

"If you knew how hard it is to believe...that anyone could choose...an angel in hell..."

"Then perhaps you should tell me" She encouraged but he looked at her with fear in his eyes and shook his head firmly.

"No. To hear it, to know what my past holds..."

She walked over and placed a hand on his arm and he looked down at the touch as though in awe, as though he still could not believe someone would so willingly make physical contact with him.

"Just tell me a little then." She suggested, "How about your childhood? Surely that is not as bad as you think it is..."

His face darkened as the memories enveloped him.

"_Once upon another time...I thought I knew how my story would end_

_and yes I was wrong...but now the moment's gone. Once upon that other time_

_I did what I thought must be done and now...I have no choice...I do what I must do..."_

"Tell me," She encouraged, undeterred by what she took to be his words of warning.

"My Father died before I was born. I was never told about it, so I do not know what happened...it was just a simple fact that seemed to be forever present in our house in Boscherville. I cannot call it a home, for I now realise more than I did then, that that was not what it was. It was not a prison either- I learned too quickly how to escape locked doors and windows, and glide down walls and roofs for anything to truly keep me contained. But it was not a home.

My mother could never bare to look at me, from the moment I was born I horrified her, and so I have worn a mask for as long as I can remember. It was the first scrap of clothing I ever wore. And I believe I wore one from the moment I was born, for when I was barely a year old I remember the mask pulling tight on my face as it was no longer large enough to contain the horrors within...not that I knew what lay behind it." He briefly made eye contact with Christine before his gaze returned to the floor, "We had no mirrors in the house besides one in my Mother's bedroom. One singular act of kindness perhaps to protect me, or perhaps, more likely, to protect herself from ever having to see the image"

"So you never saw your own reflection," Christine broke in gently, silently wondering to herself when that first glimpse had happened, because he was certainly not ignorant of his visage now.

"Not until my fifth birthday. It was the first time my birthday was ever recognised. And the last. I had asked for a gift from my mother and she had refused to give it," Christine did not ask what the gift had been and he was glad. He did not think he could bare to tell her that when he had asked for two kisses from his mother, she had backed away in horror and told him that he must never ask for that again. That first rejection, confirming what he already knew to be true. "And in retaliation when her friend came over in the afternoon I greeted them in the kitchen barefaced. I told them I no longer wished to wear it; no one else wore one. And the tightness had been causing me pains and sores."

"But surely your mother-" Christine whispered, but Erik shook his head.

"She took me upstairs, saying she would show me why I wore the mask, and forced me in front of the one mirror in the entire house. I didn't realise it was me. I was too young, and having never seen a mirror before, I didn't even know what the contraption did. Instead I believed some demon was residing in it's shining surface and so I attacked it. I cut myself badly on the shards of glass. Enough to worry my Mother and enough to cause enough maternal instinct, however brief, to tell me it had been a monster in the mirror and that the mask was magic and would protect me."

Christine looked down at his dark cuffs immediately met by black gloves and realised she had never seen his bare hands. Were the scars still there?

"That's...horrible is not a strong enough word I believe," Christine told him, "For a parent, your own mother, to treat you...as if...as if..." She couldn't find the words.

"For her part she suffered a great deal," He said, showing an innate loyalty to one's parents that is born in us all, "Left a widow, she gave birth to a deformed monster, she was ostracised by the village, mobs and groups of youths used to throw stones and jeer at the house. It did not help that I started to show a talent for music, design and architecture far beyond the advances of my age," He laughed bitterly, "If I had been handsome I should have been a famous prodigy."

Christine found herself surprised at the emotion this simple sentence brought out in her. Panic followed by a quick urging from her mind that he had not been that famous prodigy. She realised she did not want him to be traditionally handsome, something that made him the apple of everyone's eye. Something that would have thrust him into fame and fortune. He was a genius, Madame Giry had even said as much, and so artistic that Christine felt, and quickly reprimanded herself for such a selfish sentiment, that if he had been born as completely perfect as he seemed to often wish, then she would have perhaps been below his interests. He would have been beyond her. But also, she realised, it was not just selfish jealously that prompted this emotion, but also that if he had been born without his deformity he would not be the person he was now. No matter how dark he claimed his past to be, it was the person he had become that she had fallen in love with. Christine shared none of these thoughts with Erik, but instead let him continue his tale without break.

"I had a dog named Sacha. And I found more comfort from her than I had any human. She treated me in a way as a dog would treat a rather large pup and I am ashamed to say that when I was very young I passed over my cradle and cot in favour of sharing her basket. I had felt God had failed me in cursing me with this face, but I remained a good Catholic regardless, believing their doctrine that things are sent to try us and some people are sent more than others. However on the day I was told that God did not grant heaven to animals, that once my beloved Sacha was gone I would never see her again...the pain I felt was beyond any beating I had suffered or any name I had heard called by the groups that taunted our house. I broke into a rage- the first of many more to come, I am afraid to say," He looked at her now, "You, yourself, have been the victim of one such rage"

She recalled the moment she had tenderly removed his mask, only wishing to see more of the man that fascinated her so. When his deformity had been bared he had knocked her to floor, calling her name after name. The anger had quickly dissolved to sadness and self-pity and Christine had found herself not afraid but sorry for him.

"Sacha was not to live very long after this conversation," Erik continued.

"Was she very old?" Christine asked and he nodded.

"Yes, but that was not the cause of her death" He told her grimly, "She had been outside and it was night, too cold for her and I told my Mother she had to be brought in and that she wasn't to leave her out again. Then we heard the usual group outside, calling names and throwing objects at our windows and doors. Then one of them shouted 'There's the monster's dog' and the sound of another barrage of stones began. I went to run outside to get her, but my Mother held me back saying they were trying to lure me out. I did not know whether this was true, but I didn't care. I threw my Mother aside and rushed out. They had killed her...killed Sacha and it was then that I first felt hatred beyond anything I had felt before. Hatred for mankind. And hatred for God. God who granted souls and the chance of forgiveness to evil creatures such as those that night, yet denied my beloved dog any chance at paradise. I wanted to kill them, and if I had not been injured that night and too concerned with taking care of Sacha (I buried her and sang her requiem despite Mother's protests at what she thought was such a blasphemous action), I have no doubt I would have caught them and killed them"

He looked at Christine from the corner of his eye, afraid of the expression he would see on her face, but all he saw was wet cheeks glistening with tears and a pained expression of sympathy for him.

"I ran away the following night," He continued, "Determined to keep my Mother safe and give her a chance at the beautiful life I had always denied her. Unfortunately it wasn't long before I was caught by gypsies...they beat me, kept me in a cage, took my mask and tore it up so I was forced to bare my face to paying customers. Ladies fainted, men shouted obscenities, and children spat and threw sticks and stones. Eventually I managed to fashion a crude mask from an old sack that had worn away and was now deemed useless. It made me feel a little safer when I had it on and when we were not performing, the gypsies did not take it away. However whenever the customers came, after a customary beating to make me turn over, Javert would pull the mask away to the gasps of horror of the crowd. He had called me The Living Corpse for a long time and then when that name seemed to have less effect than it used to, he changed it to The Devil's Child, preying on people's religious as well as physical fear. I had been living like this for what seemed eternity but it could not have been much more than a year when we arrived in Paris. Just across the square from this very Opera House. One night a ballet mistress brought in her group of young ballet girls from the dormitories to see the 'wonders' of this travelling freak show," He could not hide the intense bitterness and hatred in his voice and Christine, for one, could not blame him, "They jeered and laughed at me. All but one. But I was too eager to find my 'mask' and place it back on to really notice. I had been building a musical contraption, a monkey holding symbols in his paws, something to allow me an escape from my awful life. But Javert had torn it from me before the crowd and tossed it aside, enjoying the extra pain it caused me, knowing it would bring in further coinage. As he collected the gold on the floor greedily and I knew further beatings were coming despite the money I had brought in, something inside me...changed. I remembered everything I had ever suffered, with the gypsies, with the people in Boscherville, my Mother, Sacha and I was unable to contain the rage I felt. A rope was lying on the floor and almost instinctively I picked it up and while his back was turned I threw it around his neck..." He couldn't continue. "That...that..." He shook his head, clearing thoughts, "One ballet girl saw me and rather than turn me in, she grabbed my hand and took me to the Opera House where she hid me. And she has helped hide me ever since."

"Madame Giry..." Christine murmured, putting two and two together correctly, and Erik nodded in admittance.

"That was the first time I had...I had..." He swallowed. He had never felt shame at taking lives before. His anger and hatred had consumed him so completely that he saw it as a means to an end and, in his opinion, had never taken the lives of any who were not deserving. But Christine, and her love for him, had opened his eyes and made him look upon his life with a whole new perspective and his actions shamed him. He took a deep breath before forcing the words out, "The first time I had taken a life. And once you have taken one...when you see someone else doing wrong, you find it so easy to take another. The bridge is crossed...so you might as well stand and watch it burn"

Christine nodded silently, taking in everything carefully.

"And Buquet?" She asked eventually, "What was his crime?" When he seemed reluctant to share, she insisted, "You have to tell me"

"It was many things. Not least of which he constantly was trying to find me, to catch me...and he had a wandering eye. Too many times I had seen him leering from above at Meg Giry and yourself, both of you innocently oblivious. The night...he died he was watching Meg from up high, and at the same time happened to glimpse me across the way. A chain reaction."

Silence took over the entire room as Erik seemed to have no energy to speak anymore and Christine was afraid of what to say.

His life had been more than horrific, and one could not wonder that he so easily fell into rage and paranoia. That when the world's morality had failed him so abysmally he had taken on one of his own. Christine could not mourn the death of the gypsy man Javert; she could not condone murder, but nor could she say the action was not understandable. With all she knew of his past, the murder of Buquet, while wrong, was now not beyond the realms of understanding either. Erik had a long way to go in correcting the evils that had been done to him and made him act the way he did sometimes, but it had not changed Christine's opinion that he was a good person with a good soul. He, more than anyone else in this world, was a victim of his own horrific circumstances and therefore one to be forgiven and loved, not shunned and punished. She knew that despite all he had said, she had still only been granted access to the bare bones of his past, but so mentally exhausting had the tale seemed to him that she would not have asked more of him now even if he had offered it.

Silently Christine stood up and walked over to where he had collapsed onto a stool, after expelling all his energies into reliving his past. He kept his head down but raised his eyes to watch her warily. She knelt down beside him and without a word, wrapped her arms tightly around his middle, her head resting on him, trying to convey as much love, forgiveness and affection as she could into this one movement.

Erik was too in shock and awe to even respond in kind and hug her back, but instead just sat there, letting her hold him.


	5. Devil Take the Hindmost

A/N: Another Love Never Dies song popping up here, but no, I swear to God I am not doing a Phantom of the Opera/Love Never Dies combination story. I swear! It's just as I was writing the final scene of the chapter, it just seemed to write itself into a scene where Devil Take the Hindmost just fitted so well.

Also, I wanted a chance in this chapter for Meg to start seeing Erik the way Christine and her Mother do, but Erik is so constantly on guard it's so hard to write such an opportunity in. But then a friend of mine revealed she'd said something utterly embarassing in her sleep the other day and it gave me an idea...

Thank you to all the new people who've added this to their favourites and alerts and to all the absolutely fab people who have reviewed!

Taria Robotnik, GracefulWolvesInTheNight, RomanticLover1 (times two haha!), BirchTreeWoman, Creaturess of the Night, Alydrial, Englasia Shine; thank you so much all of you. You all said such fantastically lovely things that to be honest I feel quite under pressure for this chapter to uphold your expectations, ha! But thank you- I got a little happy fix every time I received a review.

Anyway, enjoy and let me know what you think.

Tuppence x

* * *

Devil Take the Hindmost

It was only early morning and Paris was barely awake, but the population of the Opera Populaire was already up and buzzing with the sound of fast travelling gossip. The Phantom of the Opera, who despite his threats at the Masquerade Ball had been rather quiet, had apparently come forward with one of his notorious demands. Some heard it was an impossible opera to perform, others that he wished Firmin and Andre to leave, others that he had said all of the above with the added threat that if the demands weren't met he was going to make all of the Corps de Ballet disappear forever...just as he had disappeared at the ball. Instead of being frightened by this possibility, the ballet dancers merely squealed and exchanged theories of where possibly he could make them disappear to. Alternate realities, limbo, an eternal living tomb were some of the choice ones flying around.

So busy were they discussing what the true story could be and when the directors would eventually convey the information to them all that they failed to notice the absence of a ballet mistress usually up before every last one of them and therefore always there to bring a sharp, quick end to any idle gossip.

* * *

Madame Giry, her daughter Meg at her side, was moving quickly through the winding corridors of the opera house, heading directly for Christine Daaé's dressing room. The young girl, so punctual, so eager to please and desperate not to disappoint had not been there that morning getting ready with the rest and had not arrived for warm-up either despite the fact it was half an hour in. Suspecting something to do with Erik, or possibly the Viscount (as he had recently seemed to have become more than obsessed with the ballerina-cum-soprano) Mme Giry, with a quick word to Meg, had immediately set off to discover the cause of the delay. She had wanted Meg to stay behind, not only to continue warming up but also in case Christine arrived having merely been late but none the worse for wear. Meg had refused, getting typically frustrated at her Mother's old habit of trying to keep her out of most things that to her appeared marvellously interesting.

Reaching Christine's dressing room, she only made a courtesy knock before opening the door and walking in, Meg right on her heels. The two didn't walk very far before coming to an immediate halt as they saw the bizarre, yet warming, sight in front of them.

On the floor, next to a stool that would have toppled over if not for the wall behind it keeping it propped at an angle, was Christine in a deep sleep, her dress spread over the floor and creased beyond recognition. Her arms were wrapped loosely around Erik's middle and Erik himself was equally fast asleep. His oddly angled body propping up Christine's and his neck awkwardly placed against the sharp upturned angle of the the stool. Neither stirred when Madame Giry and Meg walked into the room; they remained completely oblivious to intruders.

Meg, despite her sister-like loyalty to Christine, had still yet to understand how she could care at all for a murderer and forgive him his sins and look past such atrocious acts. Christine had always tried to explain to her about his apparent vulnerability, gifted genius, and passionate and innately loving nature, but Meg had remained sceptical. Yet, as she looked at the man here in front of her- a well cut, expensive looking suit as rumpled as Christine's dress, and peaceful sleeping expression on the side of his face not covered by the infamous porcelain mask, a faint smile highlighting the part of his mouth that was visible- Meg thought maybe she began to see Christine's perspective. She too could not connect this peaceful man in front of her with the crimes that it was said he had committed.

It was down to Meg's mother to disturb this picturesque moment, who, with trademark efficiency recognised the great risk of someone else seeing this tableau and the ramifications that would come with that. She walked forwards and at first went to use the same method she used to wake up the less-disciplined ballet girls in the morning after they had had an ill-advised late night; that is, wake them with a jab from her ornate ebony walking stick (a walking stick that did more to emphasize points and her position than it ever helped her walk) but feeling this may be a little too inconsiderate and cruel she instead knelt down and gently shook Christine's arm to wake her.

The girl murmured as she was brought out of her world of sleep, before she finally gathered her bearings and realised where she was.

"Meg...Mm..."

"Christine," Mme Giry whispered, nudging her more firmly now, "Christine, it's morning. You need to get up before the others wonder where you are"

"Is it morning?" She was confused, only a short while ago it was late in the evening and Erik had been sharing some stories of his childhood, though 'stories' seemed too light a term for what he had shared. Erik himself was just now beginning to stir and a ménage of emotions crossed his features. The first of comfort, then once again at amazement at his physical closeness to Christine, and then as he quickly realised where he was and that he was currently being watched a brief flash of vulnerability appeared which was quickly replaced by a stoic, and slightly moody, expression as he brought himself to his feet with a quick agility that Meg found to be almost inhuman. He held a gloved hand out to Christine who took it gratefully as he lifted her to her feet effortlessly. He bowed to her silently and repeated the gesture to both Madame Giry and Meg before disappearing through the mirror faster than any of them would have thought it possible to work the contraption. A second later and it was as though he had never even been in the room.

"Christine," Meg broke the silence, "The managers are calling a meeting within the hour. It's about the Ph-" She paused in the middle of saying 'Phantom of the Opera' thinking that after what she had just seen she felt it wouldn't be right to use the term. Instead she half-heartedly waved a hand in the direction of the mirror, "It's about _his _demands"

"Demands?" Christine repeated.

"Oui," Madame Giry nodded, "A note has been sent to Messieurs Firmin et Andre detailing the next steps for them to take after the events of Le Bal Masque."

"But when-"

Mme Giry shook her head, cutting off Christine's questions.

"Not now, my dear. You must get dressed before they notice your absence, and worse, begin to question it. You can ask all you need to, either of myself or Erik, later but for now" She nodded in the direction of Christine's wardrobe, before leading Meg out of the room and leaving Christine to not only change but also to give her time to compose herself.

As she closed the door behind them, a flickering of the nearby velvet curtains caught Madame Giry's attention.

"Meg, go on ahead"

"Maman-"

"Meg" She said the name with such sudden force, her daughter had no choice but to obey and she dashed off to rejoin the other dancers. Once she was gone, Mme Giry walked over to the curtain and very purposefully pulled back the heavy and embroidered material. Behind it was a crumpled mess of a Viscount.

"Monsieur Viscount, I do not withstand hangers-on in this Opera House"

"Hangers-on" Raoul repeated in disbelief, straightening up and attempting to flatten his messy clothes as best as possible; he had clearly spent the night sleeping behind the curtain. "I resent that accusation Madame. I am here out of concern for-"

"You spend every spare moment you have in the Opera Populaire, non? For the purpose of finding one particular lady; I know no other description Monsieur"

"I am here in my capacity to ensure Christine does not naively fall into the persuading words and actions of what I can only describe as nothing but a madman"

"And this includes listening at locked doors?" She asked him knowingly and he blushed, "I advise you to go home Monsieur and wash, change your clothes and s'il vous plait? Desist from eavesdropping; it does not become you Monsieur and eavesdroppers not only ever hear half a story but they never hear any good of themselves. Vous-comprendez?"

He nodded in understanding and she walked away.

* * *

Firmin and Andre had gathered the entire company together on the stage for what they had described as no more than a 'work announcement', but they were more fools than they were often taken for if they did not recognize the fact that everyone in the entire opera house knew at least half of the information already.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," Firmin began, clearing his throat one too many times, "I am afraid, no not afraid...erm that we have...it seems we find ourselves in possession of a brand new Opera."

"A _new _opera?" One of the girls asked sceptically, "We were just beginning Aida"

"Very true," Andre agreed, "And we understand your...your, _frustrations _but you see this is just an opera we simply cannot refuse. It would be quite impossible"

"Why on earth not?" Monsieur Reyer, the conductor, broke in, "Surely you can postpone this...this _new_ opera until after the current season?"

"I wouldn't advise it, Monsieur," Madame Giry told him with a knowing look and his eyebrows rose at her insinuation.

"You're not saying..._he_ is the one behind this?"

"Wrote the opera himself Monsieur. Left it in Box Five for our dear managers here."

At this the previously quiet murmuring among the crowd escalated to an almost deafening pitch.

"Thank you Madame Giry," said , clearly feeling anything but thankful, "But yes, that is correct. We have a score here, _Don Juan" _His business partner held up the thick leather wrapped book filled with score, lyrics, book, casting lists, choreography notes and even costume design, "to be placed into schedule immediately."

"Everything has been already decided, it seems," M. Andre added, "From costumes to erm," His eyes flickered ever so briefly over to the diva La Carlotta , "casting"

"Casting?_" _Carlotta screeched, walking forward, "No no no no, 'e does not decide casting." She snatched the book out of Andre's hand and opened it, some pages floating to the floor as she found the cast list, "An 'ag? 'e 'as me as an 'ag? Her eyes scanned the rest of the list, "Ah e che sorpresa- the little ingenue is the lead." She rounded on Christine, "This is all you" She jabbed a finger, "You did this and I shall get to the ground of this"

"Bottom of this," Piangi murmured in correction without even thinking but he was quickly silenced when Carlotta turned and glared at him.

"Come! We leave!" She looked at Messieurs Andre and Firmin, "Until this problema is ah solved, I am going"

"Please, my dear, dear, prima donna," begged running towards her, "I am afraid this is out of our hands. For everyone's safety I feel we have to perform"

She let out a growl of frustration and with a swing of her skirt she marched off the stage, only slowing her pace briefly to glare pure daggers at Christine who had stood silently throughout this entire announcement.

* * *

Raoul was just leaving the building when a whirlwind of a person came towards him or rather came past him. A swirl of skirts and angrily swinging arms practically knocked him over.

"Madame," He nodded, refusing to forget his manners and etiquette even in such a situation. At his voice however, the whirlwind stopped and turned and became a human person; that is it became La Carlotta.

"Ah, Bonjourno Viscount de Changny. It's a pleasure yes?"

He wasn't sure whether she meant it was a pleasure to see him or she was presuming it was a pleasure for him to see her. Knowing Carlotta, it was probably the latter.

"Signora," He took her extended hand and kissed it lightly, "I hope you are okay?"

"Pah!" She scoffed, "'ow can anyone be okay in an opera 'ouse run by a mad ghost, eh?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"The ghost 'as written an opera! An Opera! And worse 'e has cast the little ballet girl in the lead and left me with a leetle tiny part. I perform better than anyone tutte notte in every single show! And he gives me 'ag?"

"Pardon?"

"'Ag! 'Ag! He gives me part of 'ag!"

"I'm sorry, you are saying the Phantom of the Opera has written something for you all to perform?"

"Si"

"And has insisted Mlle Daeé play the lead?"  
"Si Si Si," She nodded angrily, "'e knows nothing"

"How did Messieurs Firmin and Andre find out about this?" He asked and she told him about it's being left for them in Box Five.

"Box Five," Raoul repeated to himself, before returning his attention back to the Soprano, "Excuse me, Signora. I am afraid I will have to leave you; I have some business to attend to"

"Oh si, si, si," She nodded, gushing with a good nature she never seemed to grant to anyone else.

* * *

The viscount knew he should return home; he was still in yesterday's clothes, and he couldn't bare the thought of being caught once again by Madame Giry, but he just couldn't let the situation lie. The so-called Phantom of the Opera, an unstable man hiding behind the walls of an opera house, was going beyond too far. He couldn't be allowed to continue frightening and controlling the staff, nor moving Christine around like a puppet on a string, corrupting her mind while she remained so perfectly and innocently oblivious. Raoul had seen the skeleton of one of his disappearing acts, merely a trap door in the entrance hall, for while a ghost may be able to walk through walls a man would have to rely on trap doors and illusions; and the infamous Box Five had to be one of them.

So he searched around the box, looking under seats and tapping walls, looking for the signs of a trick. It was as he was about to try looking under where a corner of the carpet had started to come away that he felt cold air, as though a draught had suddenly been opened and then he felt a shadow, a presence behind him. He immediately got to his feet and turned around to find the Phantom before him. Dressed all in black save for a white dress shirt and that ominous looking white mask, he stood silently, and seemed to take over the entire box with his presence.

"You," Raoul gasped, his hand immediately reaching for the hilt of his sword.

"Foolish boy," The Phantom smirked, "Do you really think you would have a chance? Here, in this box, so high up and in so small a space?"

"Do you?" Raoul countered and the Phantom let out a single bark of a laugh. "I won't let you carry on like this. I will set this Opera House, and Christine, free"

"You really think she needs freeing? Is she not a woman of her own mind?"  
"I know you frighten her, and fear is always a great motivator,"

"Yes," The Phantom nodded, though he seemed to be agreeing to something else entirely, "Yes it is. You know you are starting to rather annoy me, Viscount. Your nose always where it doesn't belong. _Those who speak of what they know find too late that prudent silence is wise..."_

"You don't frighten me"

"Oh I'm sure I do," The Phantom argued, his eyes on the viscount's now white-knuckle grip on his sword, though it still remained sheathed. "_Look at you, in a cold sweat. Knuckles white. Pitiful. Shall we two, make a bet? Devil takes the hindmost"_

"_Look at you; foul as sin," _Raoul spat, all the venom he felt for this man coming through, "_Hideous, horrible. Call the stakes, deal me in. Devil take the hindmost"_

"_Our Christine shall choose her side,"_

"_Let her choose," _Raoul countered, sure that if Christine was only given the freedom she would escape this situation that he could not describe as anything but nightmarish. "_Draw the line"_

"_Show if she's yours or mine" _The Phantom continued. "_In Don Juan, she'll make her choice"_

"_Make her choice?"_

"_She'll leave with me," _Erik detailed, and Raoul let out a laugh as though the entire concept was beyond ridiculous.

"_And if she leaves with me and I win?"_

Erik could not hide the expression from his face. This boy was so cock-sure it was almost pitying. He would feel sympathy for him- if the object of the boy's 'affection' (though Erik felt it was more of a desire of wishing to conquer all than anything else) had been anything but Christine.

"_I will simply...go away" _He made the empty gesture sound so tempting that the Viscount would be unable to resist.

"_Very well," _Raoul nodded, "_Let's begin"_

"_Devil take the hindmost," _They both agreed.

Raoul's grasp on his sword now loosened as he began to feel more sure of himself. This monster was an idiot as well as insane if he thought this 'bet' could fall in his favour. Step back and let Christine make her own choice- why on earth would she choose life in the dark with a criminal when she could be free in the light and in the world. She and him were childhood sweethearts; they were meant to be together. She always liked him, he'd even known it at the time, and now...well, now, he could rescue her and they would live happily ever after.

"_You think you have the odds," _He mocked the Phantom, "_You think you're in control. You think you've fixed the dice, well, I'll gladly roll."_

Erik shook his head, a disbelieving shake that showed he was not even taking Raoul on.

"Are you quite sure you want to do this? Christine and I have a bond you know? I did not force her hand- she will choose me."He took a step towards the Viscount, the merest of movements, and took amusement as Raoul involuntarily took a giant step backwards to keep the distance wide. "_And now Christine will choose at last, prove that she is mine"_

Raoul looked at the Phantom with an look of utter bewilderment and disbelief, not believing the wild claims he was hearing. "_No woman could, or ever would, love such a man. You're insane"_

"_So now we play for your life!" _Erik took one simple stride towards Raoul and with the Viscount against the wall and therefore nowhere to go, the gap was instantly closed.

"_Devil take the hindmost!"_ They were both nose to nose now.

"_Deal the cards,"_ Erik began to conclude their arrangement, _"let them fall. Choose your hand, try your best. He who wins, wins it all!"_

"_Devil take the hindmost!" _They both concluded.

Suddenly, unable to resist the opportunity of being in so close a range to his enemy and rival, Raoul's hand went to his sword and withdrew the blade, but before he could have opportunity to use it, one of Erik's hands pinned his hand to the wall, while the other grabbed him by the throat so tightly it was almost crushing it.

"Foolish boy!" Erik repeated his earlier words, hissing the term in his face, "And may I also say incredibly bad form. You should thank Christine- were it not for her, you would be breathing your last at this minute. I have given you a chance at fair play, and a chance to escape unscathed; do not waste such an opportunity. She sings in Don Juan and leaves with me, her choice is made and you leave us alone. Keep as far away from us as possible. But if she sings for you," The tone in his voice revealed his scepticism at this even being a considerable possibility, "And walks to you. You go away happy; live out your lives and I will disappear into the night."

He suddenly released his grip and Raoul dropped his sword and placed his hands to his own throat, desperately gasping for breath. So focused on breathing oxygen back into his body he did not see the Phantom leave or even how he left, but his voice echoed around him.

"_Devil take the hindmost..."_


	6. Point of No Return

A/N: This chapter feels a little shorter than my usual, but don't worry; I'm half way through the next one so it shall be up fairly soon. It will also be the last chapter! :-(

Thank you again to all those reading and favouriting and extra special thanks and hugs and kisses to my lovely reviewers. Klutz4Eternity,PhantomFan01, DarkFairy207, Alydrial, GracefulWolvesInTheNight and RomanticLover1; thank you so much all of you, it's just so lovely to read your reviews and I send you tons of karma points and virtual hugs in return!

Anyway, let the opera begin!

Tuppence x

* * *

The Point of No Return

The Opera Populaire was shaking with the sound of the Don Juan rehearsals. The music seemed to shake the very walls. It was unlike anything any of them had ever heard and some of them were starting to feel their heads hurt from having to repeatedly go over small sections of music again and again as they were all unable to remember the arrangement and notes. The musicians struggled as tempos flicked back and forth (several violinists had already lost strings and bows to the piece) and the singers found their throats sore from jumping whole octaves suddenly, sometimes even an octave and a half. The entire score seemed motivated to push them to the edge of reason and their own sanity. Not one of them had seen much beyond the walls of the opera house since they began to work on the piece, so consumed had they been with rehearsals. So busy in fact that even the Viscount de Chagny had been unable to beg time with the leading soprano, Christine Daaé. Messieurs Andre and Firmin would have been more than happy to grant him the time, anything to keep their patron happy, but her role was so demanding and they feared the wrath of the Opera Ghost so much that they found themselves having little choice but to continually deny the Viscount's persistent requests.

Raoul began to suspect foul play. He should have known the Phantom would never uphold his end of the bargain, for to step back and let Christine voice her own mind and choices would surely mean he would have to let her go and Raoul knew the Phantom was too obsessed with her to let that happen. So the monster was keeping Christine busy and keeping him from reaching her, from being able to tell her, to talk her into leaving now before this wretched opera even had a chance to begin. Well, fine. If the Phantom of the Opera could allow himself to play the game underhandedly, then so could he. He would arrange a meeting with the managers of the Opera Populaire and solve this problem once and for all.

* * *

"I am very sorry we can only give you so little of our time Monsieur Viscount," Monsieur Andre apologised while he and Firmin spoke with Raoul in one of the dressing rooms. Too exhausted to lead the Viscount to one of their offices they had, upon his arrival, merely found the nearest empty room and settled themselves on the nearest chairs. Raoul could see large dark circles under the eyes of both the directors and they both looked as though they had aged ten years in as many days.

"Yes," Firmin agreed, "Very sorry, but it's this blasted opera. It's taking up every waking minute"

"It's the opera about which I wished to speak with you," Raoul informed them, placing his hat on the hat stand before taking a seat in front of them.

"If you wish us to cancel or postpone it I'm afraid it's quite out of the question," Firmin informed him, "Our hands our quite literally tied"

"Well not literally," His business partner argued and Firmin threw him a look.

"Almost, my dear man, almost"

"Yes but thankfully not quite. As of yet anyway," Andre then turned to Raoul again, "So yes, I'm afraid, if you have a problem with the opera we are very regrettably unable to help you. No matter how much we might wish it..."

"You are quite wrong, gentlemen," Raoul informed them, "I do indeed wish you to put on this Opera. For I believe it may be the end of all your troubles. And mine"

"End of all our..." scoffed, "It's the cause of them, dear fellow! The cause of them! End of all our troubles indeed. I tell you what would have put a stop to our troubles; not buying this damned theatre in the first place"

"Don't you see?" Raoul asked, frustrated that they were not understanding the point he was trying to make, "His opera will be the phantom's undoing"

"How?" asked as he and Andre sat up straighter and suddenly became acutely interested in the conversation.

"_We have all been blind. And yet the answer is staring us in the face. This could be the chance to ensnare our clever friend"_

"_We're listening," _Andre told him.

"_Go on,"_ Firmin encouraged

"_We shall play his game- perform his work- but remember we hold the ace...For, if Miss Daaé sings, he is certain to attend"_

"_We are certain the doors are barred!" _Andre announced, immediately latching onto the Viscount's idea.

"_We are certain the police are there," _Firmin agreed, "_We are certain they're armed"_

"_The curtain falls!"_ They all announced, swept away by the plan, _"His reign will end!"_

So carried away by the marvels of their own cunning, they quite forgot the dressing room door was not properly shut and that their voices carried out into the corridor and theatre beyond. Their voices had in fact carried to one Christine Daaé who had been walking by and could not help but overhear the words that filled her with dread. Fear and panic rising up in her she stopped her journey to the music room and instead turned back and rushed back to her own dressing room.

* * *

Christine was sat at her dressing table, her head in her hands and sobbing quietly to herself. Even though Madame Giry had shown her the mirror mechanism and Erik had used it so many times, it was still beyond her and she found it impossible to activate no matter how hard she tried. She was so worried- she had to warn Erik. She would have called out to him, but knew it was useless. The closer they came to the opening night of Don Juan the busier he seemed to become and the less she had seen of him and she found it almost impossible to make him hear her if he were not in the immediate area. She had briefly considered asking him what exactly it was that was keeping him so preoccupied, but then she remembered her former promise to trust him and so decided to uphold this and leave him to it.

It was as she was beginning to feel utterly useless, sitting there crying to herself instead of getting anything done about the problem at hand (but what on earth could she do? She had never felt more helpless in her life), when she felt a hand on her shoulder. The gloved hand could have belonged to anyone, it was merely a hand on the shoulder- no emotion attached to it to denote it's motivation or it's owner, but by the literal goosebumps suddenly shivering down her spine before quickly covering her whole body, she knew who it was immediately before she even looked behind her. She immediately placed her hand on his and held it there, her cheek against it, just enjoying the simplest of sensations, making her forget why she was so upset in the first place. And then she remembered.

"Oh Erik, it's awful. Raoul, and the managers, they are going to use the opening night of _Don Juan _to find you. They say they know you'll be here and they're going to lock all the doors and have armed police everywhere, and oh Erik, they're going to shoot you" Her voice broke as she only just stopped herself from crying again as she became overwhelmed with everything. To her surprise, instead of looking concerned and sharing her worry, he instead laughed in reply and she looked at him in disbelief. "Don't you understand?" She asked him, "They plan to kill you"

"They plan to try," He laughed some more as if even the mention of such an idea was preposterous, but Christine was not so easily assured.

"And they will succeed. There will be gendarmes everywhere, there will be nowhere to hide, nowhere to escape. If this shows go on, you'll die; I know it. Please don't make me perform this, please. We could just leave, leave now"

Erik shook his head, "And keep on running, knowing they are all right behind us? No. You have no need to worry; they shall not catch me. But you must still perform, everything hangs in the balance of this opera."

"But I don't understand-" Christine began but she saw he was already lost in his thoughts.

"Of course, I can't deny, some details may have to be changed and some alterations made to..." His face showed a fervour as his mind came to alive with new designs, plans and ideas, "Yes, it will be fine," He told Christine, "They will not succeed in silencing the Phantom of the Opera" He looked at Christine and saw that her fears were not allayed and he felt touched; a feeling he had not experienced much in his life. So rare was it for someone to care for his well-being, to even think he was a thing worth caring for in the first place, that the concept still threw him a little. So much so he almost relented, gave into her requests but a more primal, instinctive feeling took over; one that refused to let himself be chased out of his own theatre and a desire to see his own work performed at a last. "Do not worry," He told her, a hand on her shoulder in reassurance and he felt her react to the touch, as though that alone were enough to ease her worry a little, if only briefly. "Perform Christine. Show all of Paris what you are capable of; I would not deny them such a treat. And all will fall in place once the last notes have been played, and my opera is done"

So sure of himself, Christine knew there were no words or arguments she could put to him to make him change his mind. Exasperated and exhausted, she let her head drop into her arms just to block out everything for one blissful moment. When she eventually forced herself to pull her head out of the sand, Erik was gone. She let out an almost silent sigh of frustration in the empty room.

* * *

"We shall have guards at all the main entrances," Raoul was explaining to both the gendarmes and the managers along with any theatre crew who thought the instructions were worth their interest, "Once everyone is in we'll go into lock down. We shall also have guards present at either side of the stage, along the aisles and in all the boxes including the ones we ourselves shall be seated in" He looked around before announcing, "We shall have Box Five armed to the teeth to ensure our "Ghost" does not return to his old haunt. We want him to be forced as out in the open as possible. No more shadows, no more hiding," The last statement he seemed to be saying more to himself than anyone else.

"Brilliant!" said, clasping his hands together in glee, "Sounds like a very good plan Monsieur Viscount. There shall be no escape and at last, there shall be no more phantom!"

Having have heard all this from the flies above, where she had briefly escaped for some solitude, Christine felt her heart grow so cold she feared it might stop beating. Why would Erik not listen to her? This opera could only bring about his end and nothing else. With so many guards and so many eyes watching for him what other outcome could there be? Frustrated and worried and overwhelmed and tired and so many other things, Christine left her hiding place and went back down to the main floor of the theatre and back to rehearsals when she practically walked headlong into Madame Giry.

"Christine," Mme Giry greeted her in surprise; Christine was not always the most graceful of girls but she certainly didn't make a habit of literally running into people.

"Oh, have you heard what they are planning for opening night?" Christine cried out in reply, instead of apologising, "There are to be armed guards absolutely everywhere. He won't listen to me, but perhaps he will listen to you. Please, you have to convince him that this whole thing is far too dangerous. Please"

Madame Giry did not have to ask who she meant by 'he'.

"Do not worry, my dear," Christine felt exasperation as she was told yet again 'not to worry', "He will know what he is doing. He is a genius after all, non?"

"But it's his genius that I fear makes him blind," Christine countered, but the ballet mistress merely laughed it off and placed a reassuring hand on the young girl's arm.

"He just needs you to perform and so that is all you can do. Everything will become clear, no doubt, in the end" On these words, Madame Giry turned away to return to her theatre duties, leaving Christine feeling no better than she did a moment ago, but with a lack of anything better to do or any ideas to solve the situation, she headed off to return to rehearsals.

* * *

The opera had begun and they were well into the first act and Christine had yet to see any sign of Erik. He had not even visited her to wish her luck, but she had found her usual red rose tied with one singular black ribbon so she knew he had at least visited her dressing room even if she hadn't been there at the time. So strong was her worry, she sometimes had trouble staying focused on what was happening in the opera and she had to force herself to cut off all distracting thoughts. She could see the gendarmes wherever she looked. She could also see Raoul in front of the stage, not seated in one of the opera house chairs, but sat tensely on a foot stool next to the orchestra pit, as near to the stage as possible and clearly waiting for something. As Christine looked at him and wondered what that 'something' might be, he caught her eye and gave her an encouraging smile and she realised with a sinking feeling in her stomach that he still felt he was doing what was best for her. Why did he go on presuming he knew best instead of just taking her word for it? She knew he meant well, but he had gone too far and had not listened to a word of her protestations.

She forced herself to throw her current thoughts aside as she stepped onto the stage and after Piangi's cue began her line.

"_No thoughts within her head but thoughts of joy. No dreams within her heart but dreams of love!" _The last piercingly high note rang as clear as a bell and seemed to echo ethereally; long after she had sung the last note. The audience were instantly entranced. She began to peel an apple, doing her best to perform the action as slowly and as pseudo-sensually as possible, just as she had been directed, while the exchange between Don Juan and Passarino happened stage left. So focused was she on not peeling her own fingers and thus ruining her part in the scene she did not even hear the singing behind her, only listening out for her acting cue of Don Juan's first line directed at her.

"_You have come here in pursuit of your deepest urge!" _The voice cried out and it was not the voice of Piangi. She froze, almost dropping the apple. No, it couldn't be, he wouldn't. "_In pursuit of that which till now has been silenced. Silenced..." _She forced herself to turn and look at Don Juan as directed and before her was not the tubby frame of the Italian opera star, but the tall, slender and well-built body which was all too familiar. The Phantom of the Opera was on stage, in blatant view of everyone, and yet everyone seemed oblivious to the sudden change in casting. She looked at him, wide-eyed with worry and he put a finger to his lips in the universal gesture of 'shh' as though her own reaction may give the game away. He then carried on with his performance and as she listened to his voice, telling a passionate story through the lyrics in a way Piangi had certainly never been able to achieve, she felt herself becoming so lost in the moment, lost in his voice and lost in his touch as he held her from behind, his hand sweeping over the contours of her neck, that she began to lose sight of where the fictional scene ended and where reality began. She had completely drowned in him by the time his verse came to an end and a silence hung in the Opera Populaire for a moment, before she realised she was required to speak.

"_You have brought me, to that moment where words run dry, to that moment where speech disappears into silence. Silence."_ She couldn't stop herself glancing around as she sang, trying to gauge if any of the gendarmes or staff had realised who was on stage with her, but they all had the expressions of one enjoying a performance and clearly saw nothing out of place. She began to relax slightly. "_I have come here, hardly knowing the reason why. In my mind I've already imagined our bodies entwining, defenceless and silent"_ As she sang, something caught her eye. The prop master, usually behind the stage during a performance was down in front, looking haphazard and rushed as he spoke to Raoul, telling him something he clearly thought to be of the utmost performance. Over her own singing she heard the words 'Piangi' and 'just coming round'. Piangi was unconscious? Piangi was drunk? Piangi was asleep? She saw Raoul frowning, his brow furrowing as he seemed to be working something out from the information he was given. By the time Christine and Erik were on the balcony finishing their duet, Raoul was out of his seat and walking with the intent to get on stage in the middle of the act. Whispers started to run amok in the theatre but they didn't yet reach a pitch to drown out Christine and Erik's voices.

"_The bridge is crossed so stand and watch it burn! We're past the point of-"_

"Christine!" Raoul shouted, and the music came to a holt, "That is not Piangi! Let her go!" He was starting across the stage now, and heading for the staircase that would take him up to the balcony, but Erik, one arm still around Christine, pulled a nearby piece of red gauze, which evidently hid a stage mechanism, as the stairs pulled in, cutting off the entrance.

This did not stop the guards though who immediately began to find other means to reach the upper level of the stage. Christine came out of Erik's grasp as she looked around panicked, at everyone beginning to surround them, including Raoul. When she turned to back to look at Erik, however, he was surprisingly calm with just a hand held out to her.

"Do you trust me?" He repeated his earlier question, and without voicing her answer she placed her hand in his.

"Christine!" Raoul shouted in pure panic, just as there was a sudden explosion and every light in the auditorium went out as the gas supply was abruptly cut off. In the complete darkness, whispers and panicked screams broke out in the crowd along with the desperate orders of the Viscount de Chagny instructing the Gendarmes to get into lock formation to prevent the Opera Ghost escaping. They must not let the dark allow that monster to sneak away with Christine, kidnapping her, never to be seen, never to be found.

When the gas supply was checked by the lighting managers and the lights put back to rights, no more than ten minutes later (and no guard had moved from their barricade positions on the stage during that time) there was no sign of The Phantom of the Opera and the young singer.

Raoul searched desperately for secret entrances, tore apart any part of the theatre he could, but after weeks of attempts he was forced to resign himself to the fact he would not be able to find his beloved Christine.

They never found the location of the Phantom of the Opera, nor the answer to any of his constant tricks and illusions in the theatre, and Christine Daaé was never seen again.


	7. The Opera is Done

A/N: Okay so this is, sadly, the last chapter for this story. It's kind of a mixture of a glimpse of the future whilst also giving you flashbacks to tell you what happened the night of Don Juan. I am tempted to do a series of short stories based on the things I've written in this chapter- so let me know if any of you guys would be interested in something like that and I'll get on and write it.

Apologies for any typos I might have missed in this chapter- I've been writing it while travelling to and from London this week (Audition marlarky where I got whiplash from such a huge backhanded compliment where I was told 'Brilliant soprano sound. Excellent! (pause) but operatic isn't what we want; NEXT!' The first time in my life where bella cante training was a problem. Go figure. Sorry about going off on one there, but it's been aggravating me since it happened! Haha!)

Anyway, you lovely, lovely reviewers! You've been making me smile so much; you've said such fantastic things and so I only hope this chatper/epilogue lives up to your expectations. Thank you so much Persephone, Taria Robotnik, IloveTangled, PhantomFan01, RomanticLover1, DarkFairy207, loonynerdxd9, Alydrial, CaptainHooksGirl, Klutz4Eternity; lots of hugs, kisses and karma for you all! And like I said, let me know if you'd be interested in the short stories idea I mentioned.

Read on and enjoy!

Tuppence x

* * *

The Opera is Done, The Last Notes Have Been Played.

England, 1949.

"Gerroff me Peter! Argh! Gerroff!"

"I'm not even doing anything!"

"Muuuuuuuuuuuum!"

A woman, approaching forty in years and a hundred in stress levels, came out of a room with a look of extreme impatience and frustration.

"If you two don't stop it now, you'll not be playing outside for a week. Do you hear me? Peter stop bullying your sister; Holly stop making such a racket all the time"

In this moment they may not have looked it but the Goodwills were a very talented, fairly well known and, in some places, infamous family. But right now they just consisted of two young siblings and a Mother reaching the end of her tether. She had once been a celebrated stage actress but after her second child had made the decision to stay at home with her children rather than miss so much time with them due to rehearsals and productions and when her third came along, she was very definitely sure about her decision. Yet, on days such as these, she couldn't help having second thoughts.

"He keeps saying I'm a liar!" Holly protested.

"No, I don't; I said you're making stuff up. And you are!"

"Am not!"

"Are too! The Phantom of the Opera is a just a story to scare babies, baby"

"What on Earth is going on down there?" An elderly voice asked from the top of the stairs and they all turned to see the sixty-odd year old, remarkably elegant in silk scarves and chiffon pants echoing the 1920s fashions of her own youth, as she walked down the stairs.

"Grandma," Peter suddenly calmed down and became apologetic, "Did we wake you?"

"It's mid afternoon Peter; I'm not that old. But yes, as a matter of fact you were loud enough to wake the dead," His grandmother reached the bottom of the grand staircase and walked over to the trio, "And I'll have you know your sister is quite right; the Phantom of the Opera is not merely an old French Fairytale."

"Geneve..." Peter and Holly's mother began to interrupt but Geneve held up a hand to stop her.

"No, no. There's only one way to settle this argument, Penny," She turned to Holly, "Now where have you heard of La Phantome?"

"That new French girl at school," She murmured in reply as though reluctant to give up the goods, "She's moved here from Paris and she was telling us all these ghost stories her parents had been told. And that she _knew_ they were true," this she said pointedly to her older brother, "Because her _Grandparents_ had been there"

"Unless they are very old I very highly doubt that," Geneve countered and Holly's eyes widened as she realised she was possibly about to get the details from her own grandmother who she thought was at least a hundred and therefore knew everything. "Now you know your Great Grandmother?" Geneve asked, leading them all into the living room (Penny reluctantly following and seemingly only out of duty to check Geneve did not tell the children something deemed inappropriate) and taking a seat on the King Louie sofa.

"The French one?" Peter asked.

"Swedish," Geneve corrected, "She just lives in France. Now I know neither have you have met her. She was much too old and tired to travel here by the time you were both born, but your sister Helen; she's met her. Now, she _was_ at the Opera Populaire during the time of the Phantom of the Opera. In fact it was that very Phantom that forced her to move to New York all those years ago." Geneve's eyes glassed over a little as she thought of her Mother, in her nineties now, living in France, refusing to leave Geneve's Father's resting place until she herself could join him. Geneve and her brother had always seen and known how devoted their parents were to one another and had seen the couple grow older and older together without a change. She had wished to have something like that for herself, but Geneve's husband had been killed in the First World War, leaving her to raise her son, Penny's husband, by herself. Though not as by herself as one would presume; her parents had been wonderful and had helped raise Harry, acting as secondary parents rather than grandparents which is why it was a constant source of increasing bitterness for Geneve that Harry had insisted on so little about them being passed on to his own children. And what good had it done him? The children had only ended up asking questions anyway and what could he have expected? Especially with little Holly being as naturally curious and inquisitive as she was; very little got by her.

"My Mother, Christine, was barely eighteen where the famed events began-" Geneve continued, but Holly cut her off.

"Christine?" Her voice was high pitched with childish excitement, "Is she the one from the story?"

"Yes," Geneve nodded, but Peter looked unconvinced.

"Yeah but she's not the really real one," He argued, "She's just where they got the name"

"She most certainly is the really real one," Geneve told him, "Christine Daaé. Of course, she never used that name after she and Daddy left France. It would have been too easy to follow, too easy to find"

"See, she can't be the real one," Peter argued yet again, "Christine in the story was kidnapped and no one ever found her. She disappeared"

"Ah," Geneve smiled, holding up a finger as if to say he had just made the point she wanted him to, "Exactly! That's precisely what they wanted everyone to think!" And she began to tell the story her and Gustave had heard so many times in their childhood (upon their own requests) that she felt as if it were her own tale to tell and not her Mother's.

_After the lights had all gone out in the theatre, Christine felt Erik hold onto her so tightly it was as though he were afraid he may lose her in the dark (despite his almost unnatural ability to see in the dark better than any other human) but when she suddenly felt the floor literally disappear from under her she understood why. Her hair whipped about her face and she felt her costume billowing as they seemed to fall at tremendous speeds through several subterranean floors of the opera house. Eventually they slowed a little and then the rope onto which Erik was holding became taut and they stopped a mere few inches from the floor. To unwrap the rope from around his arm, Erik released his grip on Christine, but so disorientated from the sudden drop she stumbled a little and he had to catch her before she fell to the floor. In that moment, in the dimly let damp stone corridor, his eyes scanned her entire face and she thought she could see an expression there that was all too familiar on his half-masked features. One of insecurity; as though he was still unsure that she could have done such as thing as choosing him. And then Christine realised something; she _had_ chosen him and now with their "escape" her choice was now officially made. Her life was to be with Erik. Someone who felt more at home out of the world than in it, someone notoriously violent, someone hideously deformed. But also someone incredibly passionate and protective, talented beyond description with an inner beauty that seemed to transform the very deformity he despised. She placed a hand on his bare cheek gently, assuring him that she was not having second thoughts._

"_It will take them at least ten minutes before they restore the gas connection," A woman's voice broke the moment and Christine was surprised to find Madame Giry and Meg stood nearby. Erik let Christine go, once sure she could once again stand without support, and turned to the two women. _

"_They will no doubt begin to search the entire opera house as soon as possible," She continued, "We need to get you both out of here and to Bougival as soon as possible. I have sent your items on as you asked; I think you should find everything you asked for. My brother-in-law's carriage is waiting for you both along the Rue Scribe."_

_Erik took Mme Giry's hand and bowed low to place a kiss on the back of the hand of his long time acquaintance, someone he had been afraid to consider a friend despite all facts to prove it. "Madame," He said, using the formal term, "I find your constant resourcefulness astounding and I thank you for all you have done and for the many things I am sure I did not acknowledge"_

_Madame Giry looked quite taken in the moment and both Meg and Christine were sure, even in the dim torchlight, that they saw her blush. But a second later and the moment was gone._

"_Well, both of you. Allons-y. Meg and I shall have to return to the theatre as soon as possible"_

"If it hadn't been for Antoinette and Meg Giry I don't think they would have any chance of getting out of Paris" Geneve admitted, "They stayed in a summer cottage with Antoinette's sister Marguerite and her husband for a couple of weeks until the Girys were able to join them. A very private ceremony in the local church married them and shortly after, through false papers- something again arranged by the infalliable Antoinette Giry- they boarded a ship to America. To New York City"

"Where you and Dad were born," Peter acknowledged and his Grandmother nodded.

"In New York State, yes, but I was born in Brooklyn." She told him, "We grew up in a lovely neighbourhood...a very understanding neighbourhood. A lot of them more concerned with my Mother's voice and my Father's notoriety in the world of music and architecture than his...handicapp. He was the mastermind behind most of the design of Coney Island you know and so many Broadway scores and New York Opera Premieres came from his brilliant mind. And he used to be able to weave the most amazing tales. My brother and I used to beg for new ones all the time..." Geneve seemed lost in her own memories for a moment as things came flooding back to her.

"Coney Island?" Peter repeated sceptically at the same time his sister asked, "Did he really wear a mask?"

Geneve, pulled out of her brief reverie, seemed unsure of which question to answer first. She decided Holly's was the quickest.

"Yes, but only in public and when receiving guests. People can only cope with so much. When it was just us he didn't. Mother's idea. She insisted he remove it in the home; she didn't want either of us to grow up with the same prejudices as the rest of the world. To understand and see the beauty underneath. She was right; having grown up knowing no different we never even seemed to notice. We noticed his wearing the mask more than the lack of it and came to think other people were strange for preferring him that way. Mother always was a very wise person, and still is, despite what doctors say now. Age may have made her have a looser tongue than is wise in this family, but she's still all there, mark my words" Question answered, she turned to Peter, "And as for you young man, stop questioning every fact I give you. Yes, Coney Island. No other mind could have the capacity or patience or brilliance to design so many things in one place and in such a fantastic way. Phantasma may be history now, but back then, it drew people in their hundreds of thousands."

"How come you ended up here then?" Peter asked, "Instead of staying in New York?"

_Prohibition in New York made all officials, and all firm upholders of the law, paranoid. It also brought out the worst in everyone, no matter what side of the prohibition law they fell on. People became suspicious of one another; you're either with us or against us. Naturally, beady eyes turned to Erik; thinking he must be hiding something. Why else would he wear a mask? The law thought he was bootlegging, the bootleggers thought he was spying for the law. The family became unhappy in their own home. Gustave was already living in Venice, a renowned pianist and violinist, with his wife. Geneve was a single mother to Harry after her husband being killed in the war and so when her parents expressed their wish to leave America she knew she would be going with them. Meg Giry was a success in Broadway comedies and Vaudeville so she and her Mother decided to stay behind; it was a very sad parting of the ways. The two had been their extended family and without them there would be a hole in their lives that would be impossible to ignore. The idea of going separate ways almost prevented the move from happening, but then someone threw bricks through the windows of the house, shouting obscenities about Christine and insults and threats about Erik. That night they knew they had to go._

_They had enough money to take their pick and eventually decided on England. A beautiful manor in the middle of the Lancashire countryside found them a place isolated enough to feel content but near enough to the local village to not feel cut off. Though they hadn't expected it, or even hoped for it, that village had accepted them more than anyone in their life ever had. They took Geneve under their wing, feeling sympathy for her loss (there were many other widows to be found wherever they went. It was a dreadful and horrific new fact of life), and lending so many helping hands with Harry. They hadn't questioned Erik's mask, had made no comment on Christine's fame from New York as a great soprano, nor any judgement was made on the amount of money they had. And then one day the most horrendous thing had happened. A pure unhappy accident that had culminated in Erik's face being bared during an evening at the village public house after the May Day festival. No one had spoken, silence reigning supreme, and then the owner of the pub, a woman in her seventies left the pub by her husband in his will, had said nothing but a simple 'Another drink for you two is it then?' and that was that. Her word was almost law in the village and people instinctively turned to her for guidance and at her acceptance of Erik's visage, the rest had no problem following suit. The shock had, of course, been much eased by the fact the Great War had left so many survivors hideously deformed that such facial differences were no longer as inconceivable as they once were, even if Erik's was one of birth rather than the victim of warfare. He still continued to wear the mask in public, but the fact the village had not run in horror gave him a peace of mind long denied him that not even Christine, Gustave or Geneve could have ever given him._

"What rubbish are you filling the kids' heads with Mum?" Harry asked. No one had heard him come in, but he now stood in the doorway, looking at the group in disapproval. His hat and briefcase were in one hand with his coat over his arm.

"I'm not filling them with any rubbish" Geneve argued, "Just letting them know some family history"

"If you're telling them all that rot about the Opera Populaire and that my grandparents were some kind of...kind of-"

"Kind of what?" Geneve cut him off, an edge to her voice, "Your Grandparents gave you everything they had. Supported you in everything. Even when you squandered your talent they didn't say a thing. You could have been as brilliant as my Father and more; you had brains, talent, good looks. You could have been anything, but they didn't blink an eye when you decided to attend law school to become an ambulance chasing solicitor-"

"I do not chase-" Harry began to argue but his Mother carried on relentlessly.

"And how do you repay them? The moment you started out with that London set, you wanted nothing to do with them. Couldn't stand anything that made you different, out of the norm. You only let Penny meet them because you couldn't avoid it. And now you have the audacity to say that when I tell my own grandchildren about their own flesh and blood, that I'm filling their heads with rubbish. Oh I wonder about you sometimes; you take after your Father's side of the family more than I care to admit. They never had any imagination either"

"Refusing to let myself or my family get lost in a world of fantasy and subterfuge and criminal activity, yes, criminal, is not having a lack of imagination, Mother"

"I hate when you two fight!" Peter suddenly shouted, standing up, "I hate it! You're always angry! When I'm older I'm going to be horrible to you just like you are to Grandma!" He yelled, before storming out of the room and upstairs.

"Well done, Mum." Harry said sarcastically.

"Oh and of course that's my fault."

"Come on Holly," Penny said quietly, picking up her young daughter, "Let's go take Oscar for a walk. And we'll ask Peter too. We'll go over the brook hill; that's his favourite isn't it?"

The two of them left the room, Holly doing so rather reluctantly but unable to refuse her Mum, leaving Mother and son to continue their argument, oblivious to the fact they were now the only two left in the room.

"You know you broke my Mother's heart when you didn't come to Paris for the funeral" Geneve continued.

"Not this again," Harry rolled his eyes, "You know it was impossible. Penny was pregnant with Peter, I had an ongoing case. We couldn't have travelled. There was no way. It was their own fault for being in Paris anyway. If they'd stayed up in Lancashire or come down here to London-"

"You still wouldn't have come," Geneve sniffed, "And Dad knew he didn't have much time left and he wanted to spend what little time they had there. They'd met there after all, for pete's sake."

"Yes, but to have him _buried _there," Harry pointed out in exasperation, "And it wasn't even an official burial. Illegal again. Under a blasted old opera house."

"You know what that place is to them," Geneve said, her tone cool and even and Harry sighed.

"I don't know. It all seems all rather too far fetched to be true. I think they just spun us all one of those tales they were both so fond of, Mum"

"Maybe if you'd attended the funeral you wouldn't think that so easily," She countered, "If Antoinette, Meg and her family could manage to get to Paris, you could have done. They had a damn sight further to travel that's for sure. Your Grandmother was so broken. Something so sad, something that had happened to the entire family, and you weren't there."

_Nineteen Thirty Seven. How different the world was from that time long ago at the Opera Populaire. In the time of Hannibal, La Carlotta, The Phantom of the Opera, Angels of Music, young viscounts, hardworking , bumbling Messieurs Andre and Firmin, a strict ballet mistress and her sometimes hopeless corp de ballet. So long ago, as Erik and Christine, now looking so different from how they once did (perhaps only recognisable by Erik's infamous white mask), wandered the streets of Paris in the early hours that it was hard to believe it had ever happened and that that time had ever existed. Back then there had been nothing but horses and carriages and women had worn heavy skirted dresses with evening cloaks and bonnets in cold weather. Now the sound of motor cars were everywhere, woman wore anything from long billowing trousers to above the thigh skirts, cloche hats replaced bonnets and not all hair colours were natural and men were more desperate to learn to dance like Fred Astaire than they were about learning a basic waltz anymore. And one took 'dates' to the picture house rather than the opera house. However, despite all this, the elderly couple (For Erik was only a mere few months from ninety, and Christine was past her seventy-first birthday) found it all too easy to transport themselves back to that time. When they had come across the old Rue Scribe entrance of Erik's old residence, far beneath the Opera House, a place that they had not visited in over fifty years, they had been tempted to make their way in, presuming (correctly) that it had not been touched since the day they left. However, they had to face up to facts that they were far from being as young and fit as they were back then and that there was too much a risk of injury or becoming trapped. Especially with Erik's rapidly decreasing health. Christine didn't like to think about it but he had maybe two months left to live, probably less, but definitely no more than four. So many years gone by and yet it still seemed like too little time. They may have been unable to visit the home of The Phantom of the Opera in their final days together, but Erik did make one request before he died; that he would be laid to rest there. In the place where he had met his redemption in Christine and come across his first act of kindness in Madame Giry when he had been a very young boy. He pleaded, said as long as everyone was with her, Christine would be in no danger of becoming lost or trapped. She would be safe and he would be happy. He needn't have pleaded; Christine would have done anything he asked. She would have travelled with him to the other side of the world for his resting place if he had asked it of her. _

_Gustave had been a little unsettled that it was not consecrated ground in which his Father was to be buried, but Madame Giry, surprisingly sprightly for a woman in her nineties (Meg was becoming suspicious, even in her own wise old age, that her Mother perhaps in her stoic, determined nature was going to defeat the course of nature itself and live forever.), allayed his fears. Besides, in her opinion, consecrated ground being un beaucoup de merde as God was wherever you chose to find him, Gustave's Father had led a very extraordinary life; it was only fitting his burial should be equally so. _

_After the funeral, after a few weeks, everyone returned home. Gustave returned to Venice with his family; Geneve, after feeling she could do no more for her Mother, returned to England to her own family; Meg and her family also returned to their home in New York. Yet, when Christine decided she would not be returning to England at all but would remain in Paris with Erik where eventually, when her time came, she would be buried with him, Antoinette Giry also decided to stay. She did not know how many years she had left in her, but besides feeling reluctant to travel again (she was decidedly unfond of boats and aeroplanes downright frightened the life out of her. Man just simply wasn't meant to fly), she wanted to spend them in her home town and keeping company with an old friend. They were visited often by Gustave and his family, and occasionally by Geneve and her very young granddaughter Helen and found the joy of hearing French again instead of brash staccato English a simple yet blissful thing. When the unbeatable and unrelenting Madame Giry finally passed away at the grand old age of 100, and the funeral was done, and everyone had returned home once again, Christine suddenly felt very much alone. Gustave, always an insightful person even as a very young boy, seemed to know this and began to visit his Mother every fortnight despite the time and cost it took to travel. When he was able to bring some little ones from his now sizeable brood of a multi-generation family, Christine felt as though the light of the world itself was brought to her home. Those simple visits were her life's breath and if not for them she felt she would have given up long ago. When the Nazis invaded during the war and there were explosions, warfare and hatred everywhere, her children had begged her to leave. She knew they were right, that she was in so much danger living in the capital, but she just couldn't bear to leave him. Eventually, as the conditions got worse, she took a risk and made her way down to the bowels of the old Opera Populaire, finding the journey remarkably easy despite her age and managed to also repeatedly make the journey to buy food and drink and bring it back. She never entered the room in which Erik was laid to rest, wishing to think of him alive rather than reminded of him dead, but the fact he was so close did help her. When the war was over and the Germans defeated, Christine opted to remain where she was rather than return to her Paris home above ground. When the day came when she could no longer make that journey to and from her new home would be the day her time was up._

"She lives underground, Mother, you can't say that's normal"

Geneve narrowed her eyes at her son.

"I'm not speaking to you when you're like this. You get more and more dismissive of your own family. If you're not careful you're going to grow into a very dull and boring old man in years to come and wonder what happened"

With these words, Geneve got up from her seat and left the room. She headed up to her own bedroom on the first floor, and before sitting down on her chaise-lounge, she took an old wooden box from her dresser. She placed it on her lap as she sat down, opened it, and began to fondly look through the items within. It contained scribbled notes, meaningless to everyone but herself, photos from her days as an opera singer (an alto rather than a soprano like her mother but equally successful and renowned), discarded scores of her Father's, Gustave's attempts at writing his own music when he had been ten years old, a piece of a mask that had broken one day, the first tooth Harry lost, love letters from her late husband along with the few postcards she received from him in the war, the entire handwritten score for her Mother's most well-known aria written by her Father in 1895 "Love Never Dies" (it had become a continuous performance request), the ribbon she wore for her first day in school, the playbill from Meg's first leading performance, a family portrait and finally, pictures from before she was born; pictures of her parents and the Girys aeons before she had even been thought of. Her mother had been so exquisitely beautiful and her Father so handsome. Whenever she had said this as a little girl, he had argued only half of him was (and even that part was debatable, he would joke, to cover the anguish he truly felt) but Geneve saw what her Mother had seen. Despite his deformity there was something in his very being- the way he held himself, the way he thought and conceived- that seemed to take over his deformity. In her opinion, beauty within became beauty without. She took one of the pictures out and looked at it very closely, drinking in the detail, before coming to a decision. She closed the box but did not return this particular photo with the rest of the contents.

Later on, after the children had gone to bed, Geneve went into Holly's room and gently woke her. She handed her the photograph.

"This is a very special photograph of your Great Grandparents; my parents. It's very special because it was taken by my brother with our very first Brownie camera. He was so all over the place we really believed it would be blurred, but it came out perfectly. Now be careful with it because it's old now and very fragile. But because it was taken at home, my Father isn't wearing the mask (though you may notice a broken one on the table in front of them- I'm afraid there had been a bit of a mishap with a stray tennis ball that day). I just thought you might like to know what they both looked like and that when your friend at school tells you more phantom stories or you hear any other tales from anyone else any time in your life you'll remember the Phantom was just a man. Father, husband, friend. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

Holly was a girl wise beyond her five (and a quarter) years and for a moment she didn't answer her Grandmother as she just looked at the photo she had been given. It was sepia coloured and faded and worn at the corners and the background had started to disappear slightly, but clearly in the centre of the photo were two people. One, a man, sat at the table, the other, a woman, stood behind him, looking over his shoulder at a broken white mess on the table. The woman, in her early thirties, had dark hair elegantly pinned into place with a few simple jewels adorning her hair. She was stood elegantly and had a warm radiant smile at the camera. The man looked more as though he had been caught unawares by the camera and was not smiling but wearing an expression of mild surprise. He was around fifty years old and had black hair combed back and his face...Holly looked at it intensely. She could not see what all the fuss was about. The face was far from symmetrical but it was nothing to get in a state over which seemed to be what Marie at school had said, and what her Grandma's stories had implied.

"I don't understand what the big deal was, Grandma"

"I knew you'd get it," Geneve said, smiling warmly and kissing her granddaughter on the forehead, "You just always remember you said that. You hear me?"

"Yes, Grandma," Holly replied, yawning widely and handing the photo back but Geneve shook her head.

"No, no; that's yours now. You look after it carefully, okay?"

* * *

Christine was very, very tired. She almost felt as though breathing was an effort. She still had some food and drink left, but she knew she should get more. But she just couldn't bring herself to make that journey. Instead she forced herself up from her chair and steadily walked to look over the trinkets that were everywhere in this labyrinth of rooms. Her old, thin, translucent fingers ran over one of her most favourites; the monkey with the cymbals. She began it's mechanism and the music began to play and she was immediately taken back to the masquerade ball. It was as though it was happening right now instead of nearly seventy years ago. She could feel her sparkling party dress, smell the perfumes, taste the champagne, hear the music, hear the dancers.

"_Masquerade...paper faces on parade_" She let out a sigh "_Long ago in our youth...in Paris...at the Opera..." _Her voice a whisper, a mere shadow of what it once was, yet it's musicality still hung there. _"Now way back when our choices were made...now the opera is done...the last notes have been played..."_

She turned to look at the door to the room in which Erik lay. They had not had a coffin fashioned for him, but merely placed him on the swan bed, an elaborate piece of material (one designed long ago by Gustave's fashion house designer of a daughter) used as a shroud. It had been twenty five years since she had last stood in that room, since she had last seen him. She shuffled towards the door and put her hand on the door handle. Very slowly, she turned it and walked into the room. There he was, nothing more but a dim shape under the cloth. With the dust and the cobwebs (not to mention the creatures that came with them), the room before her seemed like a twisted scene from some bizarre Swedish fairytale.

"Her Father promised her he would send her the Angel of Music," She murmured, recalling the old tale, "Her Father promised her"

Feeling remarkably tired, she instinctively found herself sitting on the edge of the bed, not too far from Erik. She just felt exhausted...if she just lay down for a moment she knew she'd have the energy to get up and carry on again. She lay her head down and closed her eyes...just for a second...

* * *

Three days later Gustave came with his youngest grandchild for his usual visit. When he found the place empty he presumed his Mother was out as had happened a couple of times before. But then he saw the door to That Room open. Telling Francesca to stay behind, he walked into the room and found his Mother.

He pulled Francesca away and they left the place. He immediately sent a telegram to his sister in England. The funeral was held at the earliest date everyone could reach Paris. They left the couple together in the swan bed; Geneve left the _Love Never Dies_ piece with them, feeling it had more a place with them than it ever did in her old memory box.


End file.
